When Dahlias Bloom
by elixirsoflife
Summary: WIP: Adulting really isn't all it's cracked up to be. Just ask Dahlia Darzi. [SEQUEL/SPIN-OFF TO DORMITORY 2.6A]
1. ONE: A Seed In the Vegetable Patch

**Author's Note:** **Welcome to the spin-off/sequel of sorts to Dormitory 2.6A. I did try to write it so it could be a stand-alone fic, but let's be honest, it probs isn't. It's been my project for Camp Julno and tbh I'm not all that fond of how this chapter ends, but I can't revamp it to save my life so it's up.**

 ***screams***

 **Cue: a heck load of swearing, lotsa OCs and everyone who ships Novus hating my guts!**

* * *

 **ONE. A SEED IN THE VEGETABLE PATCH**

Sometimes, Dahlia wondered whether accidentally pouring freshly-made coffee onto someone's lap would get her fired. In this case, "sometimes" meant every other day and "accidentally" meant unapologetically on purpose, staring the other person dead in the eye as she gave them a first degree burn where the sun didn't shine. And by "someone", she meant the absolute tosser that was Kaikane Call-Me-The-K Paoa.

"So the secretary asked _me_ out of a group of twenty interns, some of them _years_ older than me, to handle the situation," he was saying now, a boast amplifying his voice. "Can't say I was surprised - after all, The K was the only man there keeping his head. Everyone else was just so inexperienced. I actually felt sorry for them, they clearly had _no idea_ what to do..."

"I'm sure," Dahlia said as shortly as she could without risking a reprimand from the bosses. Luckily for her, Kaikane was so far up his own arse, she could be smacking him senseless and he probably wouldn't realise that she'd reached the end of her tether with him.

"You know, I'd be surprised if they don't hire me full-time after this. We had a fiasco on our hands but I was in there, sorting everything out, keeping a calm head - I was in my _element_ , you know? Really _thriving_ -"

"Here's your coffee, sir," she interrupted, all but throwing the cup in front of him. "Same as usual: latte macchiato with an extra shot of espresso and two sugars."

"Ah, no need to call me 'sir', Dahlia," he laughed, though there was a note of approval that rang high in it. "Surely, you know me well enough by now!"

As much as it pained her to admit it... he was right. Kaikane Paoa had frequented The Harpy's Lounge every two or three days for the past two months Dahlia had been employed there. Each time, he ordered a latte macchiato with an extra shot of espresso and two sugars, watched her make it, and then proceeded to chat about the epic gloriousness of himself.

He called himself The K.

It was easy to grasp why Dahlia hated him.

She bit back the venomous retort on her tongue, shrugging. "Harpy policy." She even attempted a smile, though the effect made her look somewhat constipated.

In her defence, she had a reason to be. The K was a specimen no one should suffer through a conversation with so the fact that she had to be polite in one? If Dahlia hadn't needed the money, she would have kindly informed him to fucking shove his bullshit stories where the sun didn't shine and fuck off back to his shithole of an office to drool over invoices or whatever it was he did and leave her the fuck alone. But alas, she was nineteen years old and needed a steady job to, you know, stay the hell alive so she had to suck it up, grit her teeth and pretend like she gave a shit about The K.

Thankfully, it was at that moment that salvation arrived in the form of Nova Hale.

Or, at least, it did to some extent.

"Pass me a white chocolate mocha, won't you, Dahlia?" she asked distractedly, rummaging through her bag.

She slid onto the stool next to The K, oblivious to the startled look of recognition he threw her. Dahlia, however, was not and proceeded to fix him with a menacing glare, Harpy policy be damned, as if daring him to say anything.

"Um, no," she said mildly as she pulled out her wand from the pocket of her apron. She maintained eye contact with the imbecile next to her friend until an expression of deep discomfort rose to his face. Idly, she wondered if slashing her hand across her throat would be a step too far in her warning. "We don't serve people like you."

"And just what are people like me?"

"Oh, you know. Bags of flesh who use up all our damn oxygen."

A choked laugh scraped its way out of Nova's throat. She smiled, the tug on her lips a little reluctant, a little involuntary and a little sad. It brought attention to the melancholic red tint to her puffy eyes, the raw tip of her nose, the way the layers of clothes she wore seemed to be more of a wall than a source of warmth in this cold weather.

For once in his life, The K got the hint. "I shall be going now," he announced, standing up to his impressive height of 6ft 3 inches. He towered over the two of them in a way he was probably proud of in every other situation – a presence that commanded attention. At this moment in time, however, he was decidedly more awkward.

"Till next time, Dahlia," he said, lifting his coffee as if to remind her why.

She fought off her answering grimace. "Yeah. Till then." Her eyes stayed trained on his back as he walked out of the café - but almost immediately after the door closed behind him, they snapped back to Nova. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she said automatically.

Dahlia raised an eyebrow. "And I'm the fucking Queen of Sheba."

"Nice to meet you, Your Majesty," she said dryly, her fingers clasped around her purse. "Do your royal fingers know how to make me my white chocolate mocha?"

"They know how to dump it all over your fucking head."

She twirled her wand (cedar, 12 inches long, rigid), the movements precise and practiced. She still messed up every now and again but on a Wednesday afternoon, when work forced most of the country indoors and business was slow, she was perfect. It was just her at the counter right now: what had been a curse when The K had lumbered in was now a blessing in the company of her friend. She spun her wand in tight circles above the mug, watching the components of the drink blend together.

"I'm fine," Nova insisted again, though her words wobbled with the lie. "Just – stressed out. The Harpy is one of the only places I don't get hounded by idiots in the bush or wherever the fuck the press hides."

That was understandable. The Harpy's Lounge had a No Press Policy: anyone famous who walked through those doors had the right to be left alone by all in the café, finally allowed to relax. It made sense. After all, the place had been opened and owned by Louis Weasley and Teddy Lupin since about a year ago and God knows they had experienced the brunt of media attention before. The place was somewhat of a safe haven, a midway point for the famous and their lowly adoring fans.

Dahlia poured the mocha into a styrofoam cup and scrawled Nova's name across it in spiky black ink. She slammed it down in front of her - not because she was particularly angry but because she happened to do everything rather forcefully. It was just how she was programmed.

"Why did you break up with him?" she demanded.

Nova flinched. "It was a mutual decision. I told you that."

"You did," she conceded. "And while I'm all for you regaining your senses and moving away from men - since, as we all know, they're fucking useless disgraces to this society - " Take The K, for example. " - you also happen to be my friend, unfortunately, and this break up has clearly made you miserable. So why do it? It makes no effing sense."

A spark of defiance entered her. "It just wasn't working out." At the noise of an impatient interruption, she held up a hand and continued, "No, listen, Dahlia. I... I love Al, okay? Nothing can change that, not even your passionate speeches about how he detracts from my empowerment or whatever, and yeah, that means breaking up doesn't change that. But the truth is that we just don't... fit together after Hogwarts. Our timetables clash, we had to skip dates, we argued more because of it. It just stopped working."

"How does the hell does _love_ stop working?"

She smiled sadly. "It doesn't. But relationships do. Look, Al and I were heading down a path that wasn't good for either of us. Better to end it now when we don't resent each other and can still be friends in the future. Less painful."

Less painful? _This_ was less painful? Nova had cried for _days_ after she'd broken up with Potter, curled up in her bed in a rotating cycle of pyjamas and depressing movies on the MagiVision, despondently shoving spoonfuls of chocolate ice cream into her mouth. She was still crying now, if her red eyes said anything! She had cried and her heart had shattered and then she had knitted herself together with rudimentary stitches because she had just lost her first love. Her first everything.

And Dahlia had watched it all with a growing frustration and despair that bubbled out, as per usual, in snark and enough swear words to put a nun in St. Mungo's. Because, loath as she was to admit it, Albus Potter wasn't all that bad for a guy. Yes, he had this infuriating smirk whenever Dahlia told him to crawl in a hole and die; yes, he was a literal cliché down to his messy black hair and Quidditch robes; yes, he did shit like shag Nova on school trips to Rome and consequently send their friend Nala into a tirade about how lucky the girl was to have such a "romantic boyfriend".

But he also made her happy. He'd held her close when she had broken down from the stress of their NEWTs. He'd endured the somewhat psychotic and entirely nosy behaviour of her best friends with the patience of a thousand men. He'd even gone out of his way to befriend them all.

And was that not what mattered in the end?

Not knowing how to word this, Dahlia scoffed, "Why does his career matter more than your happiness?"

She was quiet. "I'm not going to tell him not to follow his dreams, Dahlia," she murmured somewhat reproachfully. "He's wanted to play for the Magpies since he was a kid and now he's their reserve Seeker. Why would I take that away from him?"

"Because you're the best thing that ever happened to the twat?"

She didn't know how to express it in words, this concern she felt over Nova's relationship falling apart. After all, she was no romantic. She didn't believe in fairy tale princesses swanning around in their towers, waiting for a pretty prince to save them; as far as she was concerned, damsels were better off getting themselves out of distress. That way, they were out of danger and _not_ chained to a man for the rest of their lives.

But she did believe in love.

That quiet sort of love she saw in her parents: in the care her mum put into cooking meals for her dad, in the feather-soft reach of his fingers on the back of her hand as he left for work in the morning, in the fish and chips he brought home every now again just because it'd been the first thing they'd ate in this country. An unspoken acceptance that she was herself and he was himself and that they could survive without each other but simply chose not to.

Not this fierce, fiery competition in who owned who that was all the rage nowadays. Lately, it seemed that it was cool to be psychotically jealous, trendy to be obsessively in lust, forever deluded with the idea of love instead of experiencing the real thing itself.

Nova and Al had been the first kind of couple. Dahlia knew that almost as well as she remembered the way she had first informed the twat that she hated the sight of him. (She didn't.) She knew this, but for the life of her, she could not figure out how to word it.

"He doesn't deserve you if he doesn't realise that," she said in the end. Her words weren't as aggressive as always and perhaps that said it all for Nova merely shrugged.

"Or maybe I don't deserve him."

* * *

CRACK.

Like always, when Dahlia apparated into her bedroom, she rocked back too far on her heels, sending her flying onto her arse and crashing down on the bed in the ultimate epitome of grace. She groaned and then decided to just fuck it and lay down. With a flop, she collapsed back, her legs stretched out as far as possible so her shoes just about skimmed the carpet. Body still as taut as the string of a bow, she focused on the mechanics of slipping them off.

Left heel against her right toes – a forceful flick down – shimmy to release – and then swap.

Ah. That was the spot.

And then the world exploded.

"DAHLIADAHLIDAHLIADIDI." Her bedroom door crashed open and a small blur zoomed in. It crossed the floor and threw itself onto her in three seconds flat. "YOU'RE BACK, YOU'RE BACK."

"Khayri, if you don't get off me, I'm going to chuck you out the window."

Her little brother grinned at her, all cheek and chocolate drop eyes, melting her dead, ice-cold heart within seconds, but he listened all the same and slid off her. He sat cross-legged, the sole of his left foot pressed against her hipbone.

"I heard you, you know," he said excitedly. "You're always so loud when you come home which is both cool because we know you're home and not cool because if someone _else_ was here, you'd be in a lot of trouble. Like if it was Auntie Supriya! She would probably tell everyone what happened."

"Guess I'd just have to murder her then, wouldn't I?" she said lightly.

Khayri laughed, a giggle that ended in a small snort she absolutely loved. "Yeah, it's the only way to keep our secret from all of Oldham."

 _Our_ secret.

With Khayri, the word held so much weight.

Seven and a half years ago, Dahlia had her entire world shaken up like a snow globe; one where, when the flurry had settled, she'd found her crappy town replaced with Hogwarts Castle and the word "witch" stamped onto her birth certificate. First had come the disbelief, the utter scepticism that came hand in hand with being a Muggleborn. Next had been the cool sensation of relief, the knowledge that all these strange occurrences that had plagued her mum and dad at night weren't _bad_ , that she hadn't been made wrong. There'd been the excitement of pouring over textbooks with her brother, Danyal, of fantasising of this shiny new world they were now part of.

Exactly two years after that, she found out that Danyal was not a wizard.

Neither was Jaspar.

Or Sana.

But Khayri... Khayri was a different story. He had been a few days shy of three when she had whisked away to Hogwarts and had grown up with only glimpses of her, snatches here and there for a total of about three months a year. He had known Dahlia as messy handwriting on parchment, talking about the flashiest aspects of her life at school - which, considering it was still school, wasn't much - and then later as the only person who seemed to know why he'd managed to make Mrs Gallagher grow a beard.

The secret of Dahlia's magic was the concern of the entire immediate Darzi family - but now it included Khayri's powers too.

If she thought she had loved her little brother before, that was nothing compared to now.

"Will you let me use your wand today?" he asked excitedly. "You said you'd let me if I put out the laundry on your turn."

"That was before you broke Mum's vase with it."

"That was an accident!" he protested. "And you fixed it!"

"Did I? Did I _really?"_ she said, giving him a serious look. At his glower, she grinned. "At least let me eat first, you little twa – uh, you little twit."

After a particularly long day at work like this one, it always took her a while to get out of the habit of swearing every two seconds. Yes, that was right: Dahlia Darzi, the creator of half of Hogwarts' current favourite curses, had a mouth cleaner than soap whenever she was home. It was an unwritten rule in the Darzi household that swearing was forbidden - which probably explained why she did it so much the second she stepped outside.

"Okay!"

He scrambled up and began tugging on her hands like a six year old, pulling her upright. Before she could protest, Khayri yanked her out of the room and down the stairs, so quickly she nearly slipped and cracked her head on them. With a yelp, her hand shot out to grab the banister and she jerked to a stop.

"KHAYRI!" she shrieked. "You nearly killed me, you idiot!"

He blinked owlishly at her. "Oops?"

Dahlia glared. "You're lucky I'm so hungry right now," she said. "So I'm going to be too busy eating to bury you in the garden."

"You can't bury me in the garden, you'll ruin Mum's vegetables."

"That's exactly why I'll bury you there. Vegetables deserve to be ruined."

He cocked his head to the side. "Okay." He shrugged, apparently deciding that being buried alive in their mum's vegetable patch was a mere minor inconvenience, and added, "Mum made dal, you know."

"Get out of the way," she said and all but threw herself over the banister.

She landed clumsily, all knees and pain and ringing in her bones, prompting a shriek from the living room on just who the hell made that sound - but, far too concerned with the thought of dal, she brushed it off and stumbled upright.

"Cool!" Khayri exclaimed, hurtling down the stairs to follow her into the kitchen. "I wanna do that."

"Um, no," she scoffed.

"Why not? _You_ did it."

"Yeah, because I'm nineteen and made of steel. You're, like, five and will probably snap if I even poked you."

"Not true," he said vehemently. "I'm actually really strong. And I'm _ten_ , by the way."

"Sure. Ten... days old."

Khayri opened his mouth to retort, but he was cut off by a disapproving, "Dahlia, was that you who made that sound?" In the open doorway appeared Aadyha Darzi: thirty nine years old, five foot two inches tall, wearing a reproachful frown and a beige salwar kameez.

"No," she said automatically. She shot Khayri a look of warning, but there was no need: the kid didn't plan on ratting out his favourite sister any time soon.

"Yes, it was."

"If you already think it was me, why ask?" she replied, turning Mum's frown upside down.

Laughing, she drifted into the room, ruffling Khayri's hair as she passed him and guided Dahlia into a chair. "I made dal," she told her. "You sit down and I'll get you a plate."

"Okay." She grinned, happy to be waited on. "Give me quite a bit, I'm honestly _starving_."

She leaned back to stretch out on the chair, back arched like a cat, and let her eyes drift shut. As always, her mother began to hum as she fluttered around the kitchen, words tumbling from a foreign tongue like pretty petals, comforting and familiar, especially after such a long day. Dahlia stayed poised like that - spine curled, messy hair in tumbles, the somewhat angry line that often existed between her dark brows smoothed away - and tilted her head to the side to absorb it all. She wasn't particularly fluent in Hindi so for the life of her, she couldn't understand most of the melody, but it didn't really matter in the end.

The sound meant one thing and one thing only: she was home.

Of course, that effect was ruined by the front door slamming open and a loud, "AMMUUUUUU, HAS A LETTER COME FOR ME YET?" There was the hurried patter of feet; Dahlia opened her eyes just in time to see her younger sister run into the room.

Sana Darzi was nothing like Dahlia.

For one, she was a few months shy of fourteen years old. Dahlia was a few months into nineteen. For another, she was a social butterfly - not that Dahlia couldn't be sociable herself, it was just that she was prone to grabbing a cup of tea with someone and then telling that person to drown in it. It was all part of her charm.

It was not part of Sana's.

Sana preferred infectious giggles and whispers behind hands when the teacher's back was turned and clumsily rolling lipstick across the bow of her mouth. She was the sort of girl who doodled her crush's initials on her Maths exercise book, enthusiastically ran for her life in the bleep test, added person after person on Facebook and then Instagram and then Snapchat, and then actually talked to them on all three apps. Her face reflected that bright, cheerful innocence in the rosy apples of her cheeks and wide eyes. She was cute and loveable, though Khayri gave her a run for her money.

Naturally.

"The hell do you sound like a stampede of elephants for?" Dahlia asked by way of greeting. An automatic reprimand interrupted Mum's humming; Khayri snickered like a horse.

"I didn't sound like an elephant," Sana objected.

"You're right. You were a herd."

"Shut up, Dahlia Didi," she shot back. "No one was talking you."

"You are literally talking to me."

"No, I was talking to Mum."

"You see this? What's going on between us? It's called a bloody conversation i.e. _you're talking to me._ "

Sana's mouth opened and closed several times in frustration. For all her beams and rose-tinted glasses, she, like many, was not immune to the aggravation her older sister easily brought on. They loved each other and they loved to argue with each other.

"Amu!" She finally settled on, stomping her right foot once on the linoleum floor. "Make her stop."

"Dahlia, stop," Mum said dutifully, though her voice was as stern as if it was her own decision to cut in. She placed a plate of dal and roti in front of her and then a glass. "Just eat."

Sana was smug; Dahlia shoved half a roti into her mouth to stop an acerbic retort from rising into it.

"So, Amu," Sana said, turning to their mum. She now had their back to them as she scrubbed away at whatever was in the sink. "Did a letter come for me?"

Dahlia rolled her eyes.

Khayri made a face and said, "Why would a letter come for you?" His mouth wrapped around the words in exactly the same way hers would have, though they were rendered much sweeter since they were, after all, Khayri's. Clearly picking up on this, Sana shot him a disapproving look and then levelled it upon his role model. Dahlia ate some more roti.

"School has this pen pal system," Sana explained, pulling out a chair and perching on the edge. "Our year has it with another school from somewhere else in Greater Manchester and we were supposed to get our first letters this week."

"At 8pm?" Dahlia raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I was just _asking_..."

"Don't."

"Shut up, Dahlia Didi. Just because we can't all have ugly owls like you do to send our letters in the middle of the night."

"Don't speak like that to your sister," their mum threw over her shoulder.

"My owl isn't ugly," Dahlia said, even though he really was.

Euripides might have had a cool name that his owner was unapologetically proud of, but he was also an eagle owl with angry amber eyes, a sharp beak and an omnipresent expression that suggested he was plotting someone's murder. He had cost her an arm and a leg to buy (since owls were not the cheapest thing on sale in Diagon Alley) and spent the majority of his time snoozing in his cage, but she had thought him a wise investment now that she no longer had access to school owls. She could, of course, go to the post office every time she wanted to send a letter - but to have to constantly pay money to communicate with her friends seemed unbelievably stupid to her. So, much to her parents' chagrin, Euripides had been bought exactly two months ago.

"Yes, he is. And he has a weird name."

"You have a weird name," Dahlia retorted. " _Chickpea_."

"Stop saying that! My name doesn't even mean chickpea. It means brilliant."

"Whatever you say, chickpea."

Sana glared. "Brilliant."

"Chickpea."

" _Brilliant_."

"CHICK TO THE FREAKING PEA."

"BRILLI-"

"WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP RIGHT NOW!" Mum yelled, throwing down the dishtowel she had been using to wipe one of the plates. She whirled around and smacked her forehead angrily. _"Agar tum dono jhaghad te raho ge, mera sir phod do ge!"_

There was silence.

And then Khayri smiled and said, "I like Euripides. He lets me stroke his feathers."

The kitchen exploded with laughter.

* * *

 **Do you see what I mean about the horrible ending?**

 **Also, Dahlia's mum's outburst at the end means "** ** _if you two keep fighting, you're going to make my head explode"_** **in Hindi according to the lovely 800 words of heaven.**

 **Also, what do y'all think of this chapter? Like, do you hate it and me? Do you want to bask in the glorious shadow of The K? Are you wondering how the hell a waitress gets an article in WW? Lemme know in the review box below**

 **xo**


	2. TWO: Love, Lust and a Louispalooza

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Uh... just so you know, this is the chapter that kicked off Camp JulNo for me at, like, midnight. Which means word vomit and so much ridiculousness. Like. EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING IS RIDICULOUS OKAY**

 **That's basically the case for the entire story.**

 **You have been warned :P**

* * *

 **TWO. LOVE, LUST AND A LOUISPALOOZA**

Today was a day for tears.

Tears of frustration. Tears of anger. Tears of grief. Tears born from that gaping hollow in someone's chest when their heart had been broken and then ripped out in the blink of an eye. Tears upon tears upon tears.

Dahlia felt like breaking down into tears too.

Because sometimes customers were just so fucking stupid.

"So can I get the Louispalooza, only without the enchantment that turns your hair into different colours?" the girl at the counter asked, waving her eyebrow pencil at her ash blonde locks. "Please," she added a second later.

Her manners, no matter how sincere or late, weren't enough. "I'm sorry, it's not possible to serve the Louispalooza without the enchantment included. Would you like a different drink instead? Maybe the Potter Punch?"

"No, I want the Louispalooza." She frowned disapprovingly at her. "Everyone talks about how amazing it is."

"It is," agreed Dahlia. "But the recipe requires the enchantment to be added in."

"Why can't you just take the spell out?"

"Because it changes the flavour of the drink and is potentially dangerous. If you're looking for something fruity but light, you might like Victoire's Twist: it's a blend of strawberries, raspberries - "

"I don't want a Victoire's Twist, I want a Louispalooza!"

"I can make you a Louispalooza but it'll have to include the enchantment, I'm afraid," Dahlia said through gritted teeth. She plastered on a smile. "Is that what you'd like?"

"I don't want my hair to turn green," the girl said snottily. "Do you know how many Galleons this dye job cost? 3 Galleons and 5 sickles. The hairdresser specifically said to stay away from any hair-related charms for the next twenty-four hours so I want that Louispalooza sans enchantment, okay? Capisce?"

Dahlia was going to throw the drink at her fucking face if she didn't shut up. Capisce?

"Everything alright, ladies?" came a sudden voice.

Teddy Lupin exited the kitchen, unashamedly donning a black apron that had PROPERTY OF VICTOIRE W. scrawled over the logo for The Harpy's Lounge, hands in the pockets of his jeans. The quirk of his mouth was knowing, the planes of his face deliberately blank. He came to stand beside Dahlia, half a foot taller than her.

The customer flushed a little, either because he was Teddy Lupin or because she knew she was behaving like a plonker. Nevertheless, she schooled her features and said rather haughtily, "I would like to order a Louispalooza, only without the enchantment that changes hair colour, and your employee is refusing to make it."

Teddy's eyebrows, dark brown despite his mauve curls, lifted. "I'm afraid it's not possible to make the Louispalooza without the enchantment, darling." Somehow, he managed to avoid sounding like a condescending twat. "Would you like the Victoire Twist instead? It's just as fruity, only much more refreshing, and it works out cheaper."

The girl blew a strand of fake ash blonde hair out of her face. She blinked. "Okay."

Dahlia was going to kill someone.

Somehow, she managed to keep the murderous expression off her face as she accepted the money off the straw-haired, entitled cow with no capability of blending in her blusher standing at the counter ("That'll be 2 sickles and 19 knuts!") and waited for Teddy to whip up the drink. She hoped he poisoned it. Her eyes narrowed in on the girl as she took a cautious sip, sent Teddy a sunny smile and swanned off to one of the leather sofas on the other end of the café - alas, it seemed he had not.

"Gosh darn it, Dahlia," Teddy sighed exaggeratedly. "Couldn't you have just told her that the enchantment needs to be in the drink?"

The painfully fake smile on her lips twisted into a scowl. "I hate you," she informed her boss.

"But you hate Louis more, right?"

"No."

"Ouch." He winced, hair rippling sunset orange. "Such venom! I'm not the idiot who tried to order a Louispalooza without the enchantment."

"I don't care."

In an ordinary job, Dahlia's ire might have earned her a swift removal from the premises and a termination of her contract but thankfully, being a waitress at The Harpy's Lounge meant otherwise. So long as she was polite to the customers and did her job well, she was at perfect liberty to drop the façade with her bosses. For example, by informing Louis that his most recent dip-dye made him look like a tosspot.

Which she did.

Frequently.

"Ah, I have to go and help out in the back," Teddy said, clapping a hand on her shoulder. "Have fun. Keep smiling. Prepare to hex any reporter sniffing about."

With that, he slouched back through the kitchen door and lost himself in the clatter of sizzling oil, cauldrons and steam. Dahlia watched him go, briefly wondering how she managed to more or less get along with Teddy considering he was related to Potter (her number one enemy as of The Break Up) and an annoyingly confident member of the male species. What usually irritated her to no end still irritated her... but to less of an end.

"Give me a Palace of Jem's, sweetheart," drifted in a voice from the left. She turned to see the very namesake of that particular dessert slumped on the stool closest to her, despondently staring at his wallet.

James Sirius Potter had changed a lot since he had left Hogwarts.

Back then, he'd sauntered through the corridors of the school as if he had been the king of it (which he had been) with a messy man bun he had believed to be attractive (which it had been) and rumours that he held the record for snogging the most girls at a single party (which he did hold). All one had to do to sum up James Potter was to picture Gryffindor's poster child and sauciest wet dream.

Naturally, he had made Dahlia want to wear a hazmat suit.

Nowadays, however, his hair just about fell into his eyes, having been the victim of a drunk night out that had been plastered all over Witch Weekly. He had most recently been attached to a blonde waif of a girl with a waist the size of a penny ever since he had abandoned his aim of shagging more people than Charles II. And he also apparently slouched on stools and tearfully bought the biggest, most sugar-filled ice cream dish in the café.

He still made her want to wear a hazmat suit.

 _"Sweetheart_."

Who the fuck did he think he was?

"Sure," she said evenly and turned to the ice cream section.

A Palace of Jem's consisted of two hearty scoops of each ice cream flavour on offer, a bit of fancy wandwork and some toppings. She usually tried to hand the job off to other employees – Emma Belby, for example, managed to make hers in exactly the same way every single time – but the other worker, Jade, was cleaning down tables at the far end of the café.

Sighing, she piled liberal spheres of each flavour – chocolate, bubblegum, strawberry, caramel, vanilla, nebula, the whole lot – onto a plate and waved her wand in the way she'd been taught. The ice cream twisted into a small, lopsided castle. She grimaced. Paused and studied it. Decided there was nothing she could do and added the melted chocolate moat and a handful of chocolate droplets.

She placed it directly in front of him. "That'll be four sickles and fifteen knuts, please."

James didn't move. The only thing that changed about him was that his eyes were trained on the ice cream instead. And then...

"The palace is lopsided."

What. A. Wanker.

"I'm sorry," she said, forcing her voice to stay calm. She just about managed although it took her considerable energy - usually, she was better at this, good enough to fight back the scream of frustration building up in her, but today had just been _awful_. "This is the dish I find the hardest."

For a moment, James looked as if he was going to argue against this. But then his shoulders sagged even further and he all but flung the coins at her, crying, "I guess it doesn't matter, does it? At the end of the day, I'm still going to eat it. I'm still going to be sat here by myself eating an ice cream big enough for two people, but there won't _be_ two people eating it, there'll only be me. No one else to give a shit! I'll be the only one getting diabetes here!"

She stared.

James pinched the bridge of his nose. "Long week," he said, looking almost as if he was going to cry.

"Er..." Dahlia said, slowly reaching to collect the money. Like islands, they sat oceans apart from each other; when she dragged them across the polished wooden countertop, they protested loudly. "Are you... okay?"

She really didn't know what the protocol for such a situation was. Sure, she'd had many customers in the past who had ranted to her about their day just to let someone else ease the weight off their chest; sure, she'd even given them some solid advice. But James Potter was, well, James Potter and he seemed upset, not angry. Shaking not with rage but a dwindling self-control.

As if her words had been all he needed, he blurted, "You know Constance Evermore, right? Of course, you do, she's my girlfriend - or, well, she _was_ my girlfriend until earlier on last week. I just found out she's moving to the freaking _Czech Republic_ and _Prague_ or whatever the fuck the capital is called and I just - "

"You're going to miss her?" she offered.

"I was going to propose," he all but exclaims. "And it was going to be all _romantic_ with fucking violins and roses and the fucking _moon_ out - "

"Hold on, what?" Dahlia spluttered.

She couldn't help herself, her tongue another creature entirely with a will of its own. She had always been the sort of girl who said exactly what she was thinking, the sentences arranged with clumsy conjunctions and ill-chosen words and entirely too much drama. This job forced it back, had her trap her thoughts behind her teeth, transforming them into metal bars - but she had been worn thin by stupid customers like the Louispalooza ash blonde idiot and another year-long conversation with The fucking K –

So without a second thought, she exclaimed, "You wanted to propose to a girl you've been dating for two and a half months? Are you _mad?"_

James blinked. "Love knows nothing about time."

Dahlia blinked too. Then, she snorted. "You're actually fucking mad. Oh my God." She paused. "I've seen flies live longer than that."

"Does it matter? I didn't come here for judgement," he said stiffly. He pulled his dessert towards him and shoved a glum spoonful into his mouth. "I came here to drown my sorrows in ice cream."

"Of course, it matters, you daft - I mean. If you met her just two and a half months ago, you probably don't know her well enough to know if you want to be with her for life. Like - God, you're still in the honeymoon period two months in - how - _wow_."

"I know her," he said defensively. "I'm in love with her."

"If you insist."

"I do!"

"Well, then, you're in love with her," she said, unable to help her eyes from rolling towards the back of her head.

She couldn't believe she was even _in_ this position – two years ago, if someone had asked her how she felt about giving relationship advice to James freaking Potter, she would have dumped orange juice on them as a response. First of all: James Potter was the walking embodiment of chlamydia and would probably have a nervous breakdown if asked to spell the word _love_. Secondly: she would rather drive her wand into her eye than give relationship advice unless it was demanded of her by her friends. But then again, two years ago, James Potter had a manbun and Dahlia had no obligation to behave to earn money, so a lot could change in that time.

"You don't believe me," he stated.

"What gave you that idea?" Try as she might, she could not keep the amused smirk off her face. At his stony expression, she rolled her eyes for the second time in as many minutes and sighed, "Look. If you're so sure you're in love with this girl, then fine, you're in love with her. It literally makes no difference to me. I'm just a waitress who can't make a Palace of Jem's to save her bloody life."

"I'm sensing a _but_ here."

She raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Did he really think she was that predictable? Jesus, she didn't care _that_ much about his relationship, or lack of one. "No buts. I don't care. If you're so confident that you love her, do whatever the bloody hell you want. I'm not asking you to give me a damn dissertation on why you're in love with her and how you know."

James thought this over, eyebrows knitted together in dissatisfaction. It was clear that he _wanted_ her to care, wanted someone he could argue with to validate his feelings, confirm that this transgression was indeed a transgression, that he wasn't an idiot for feeling like his heart had broken. In truth, Dahlia wasn't in a position to decide so. She was _Dahlia Darzi_ – she put little stock in relationships at this age, dismissed most of them as either shows of possession and ownership (which an alarming amount were) or pointless endeavours that resulted in nothing but insecurity and tears. She was astonishingly critical and cynical about these things. If he wanted validation, he was looking in the wrong place.

For perhaps the millionth time in their conversation, he repeated, "I _do_ love her. And I _can_ tell you why as well!"

"It's alright," she said because she really didn't need someone to pour their heart out on a Thursday evening when she was already at her wit's end from all these bloody customers. Honestly, if James started crying, she might too.

"I love her because she's kind," he ploughed on loudly, "and thoughtful. Like every time we had a night out, she always made plenty of hangover cure beforehand for the entire group twice over. She was great at Potions which I always admired because it was my worst subject. She didn't judge me for not having a job and every time my family got on my case about one, she always cheered me up by taking me out. She was good at that. Having a good time."

He paused, as if waiting for Dahlia to interrupt with a "SAY IT ISN'T SO!" or something as equally dramatic. She did not.

"And she's really pretty," he added. "Very beautiful. And she's aware of it too which I have always found attractive in a girl – you know, it's ridiculous to expect girls to always be demure and shy and unaware of their beauty. I never understood why people made a big deal about girls being 'vain' when all they are is aware of their own beauty? So uh, yeah. Constance is beautiful and she embraces it. Which I like." He stopped again.

Realising that he wanted a response, Dahlia shrugged. "Fair enough. I can get behind that."

Part of the reason Dahlia despised relationships at this age was because it often devolved into a mess of feeling _validated_ by it or by the number of guys who found you good looking. It didn't _matter_ if you found a spot in the Top Ten Girls of Seventh Year – it was actually pretty fucking sexist and degrading; Dahlia had been only one of many girls who had hexed Campbell Thomas eight months beforehand when he had created the damn thing – because beauty didn't need the opinion of horny eighteen year old boys to define it. People who embraced their looks with confidence, like her friend Cassidy, had always earned some unofficial respect from Dahlia. So yes, she could understand why James admired that Constance embraced her beauty.

That didn't mean she thought they were in love.

"Exactly! So, you see why I'm in love with her, right?"

"I see why you were in a relationship," she said evenly, though, truth be told, she didn't. All she could see were the minutes ticking away on the clock above the door, counting away the seconds until she could finally clean up and leave.

"So then there you have it," he declared, somewhat smug. He even sent her a victorious smirk. A fucking _smirk._ Why was he so bloody _annoying?_ "I _am_ in love with Constance."

If he was so in love with Constance, why the fuck did he need her to validate it? Jesus freaking _Christ_.

Another customer appeared then, shaking the snow off their gloves as they ordered a hot chocolate with marshmallows, shivering in their boots. The conversation was cut short, Dahlia launching back in Harpy Mode and pasting a smile on her face. Even after a couple of months' practice, it was still somewhat painful to break out _and_ to behold so when the customer hurried into a seat a few metres away, James snorted.

At Dahlia's sharp look, he grinned. "That looked like it hurt," he remarked.

Not sure why she couldn't treat him like a normal customer, she shot back, "So's your damn face but you don't see me complaining." A brief heartbeat of fear stilled her as she recalled just what his relationship to her bosses were and how he could _easily_ get her fired. She even prepared a reluctant apology – but he let loose a surprised bark of laughter.

"Damn, Darzi, you're such a shit waitress," he said, though there was an admiring note to it. "Entirely the wrong temperament for it."

She shrugged guardedly. "Teddy and Louis liked me well enough."

"That's because Teddy and Louis are nutters," he confided.

He dug into his ice cream with much more gusto than before. Dahlia watched him, searching for traces of that glum boy from before but he seemed to have disappeared. Mostly out of curiosity, she said casually, "So. Why did your girlfriend move to Prague?"

He froze, fingers curled around his spoon. It was buried halfway through a bubblegum turret, slicing into the window like a giant's spade, ready to level it to the ground. He glanced down and then let it go.

"Apparently," he said mildly, "my _ex_ -girlfriend is currently chasing a modelling contract. I didn't even know she wanted to _be_ a model in the first place but there you have it."

It seemed that, for some wild reason, James shot all of Dahlia's self-control to the ground. She blurted, "Wait, so the girl you're supposedly in love with has wanted to be a model all this time and you _didn't_ know that?"

"It never came up," he said defensively. "She seemed exactly like me. Directionless, you know? She hated talking about jobs and stuff. It was too serious for her."

"Did you talk about _anything_ serious?" There was an undeniably condescending note to her voice now, one they were both well-aware of. "Other than the whole partying, hangover cure, all that nonsense?"

"No," he said viciously. He picked up the spoon and shoved another mountain of ice cream into his mouth. "Not everyone needs to talk about _politics_ or whatever bullshit you're thinking of with their partner. What happened to getting with someone who makes you happy?"

"Look, genius." She wasn't vicious. She wasn't even yelling like she did at least 65% of the time (Alice frequently said she was the definition of a foghorn). She was simply matter-of-fact and it was probably this that prevented James from growing even angrier and even more defensive. "I'm not an expert on love or whatever but here's what I do know: the person you marry is ideally with you for life. They need to know the good parts about you, yeah, and they need to be able to make you happy. But they're not just there when it's all sunny outside and everything is happy and filled with sparkles. They're there through the tough parts, the ugly parts, the serious parts. That includes stuff like jobs. The struggles of reaching your goals. When you fail at whatever you're trying to do.

"If they're there during the hard times, the fact that they're present during the good times makes it all the more fucking worth it. So if you don't know basic things like the fact that your ex-girlfriend wants to be a model, why did you think the two of you were ready to get married?"

* * *

By the time they were finished locking up The Harpy's Lounge, there was only an hour left until Flourish and Blotts followed suit so Dahlia hurried along the cobblestones with a quick farewell to the others, her face buried in her scarf, her hands curled protectively around her wand (just in case). After a late shift, she usually hurried home to scarf some food down before she withered away into nothing – but after harrowing shifts where she had to deal with snotty customers, wankers like The K and even bigger wankers like James Potter and his girlfriend troubles – she needed something to calm her before she apparated home. It wouldn't do well to accidentally annihilate Khayri just for breathing in her direction, after all. She had learnt her lesson from last time.

She entered the bookstore, eyes drifting shut at the sensation of warm air swooping in to caress her face. Inhaling deeply, she ventured further into the shop, letting the scent of fresh books and ink stains replace the haze of crabby exhaustion.

Abruptly, the words of a student counsellor she had been forced to see in her early years at Hogwarts for anger management lessons drifted into her head:

 _Inhale and feel great; exhale and release the hate!_

…

She wanted to throw a fucking book at someone.

Thankfully, no books were thrown. Dahlia managed to call upon her self-control – it seemed she had a lot more of it than she had once thought – and snatched up a murder mystery novel she had been thumbing through for the past two weeks or so in stolen moments here and there. She had never been a fan of romances or young adult books, bored with the unoriginal drivel that too often rose to popularity. It seemed every book nowadays starred female characters with quirky names who had to save the world but were easily distracted by two boys with equally quirky names who were vying for her eternal love. If the genders had been swapped, she knew for a fact that love interests would have been dismissed as petty, immature and worthless.

When really, it was the other way around.

All those fucking Rykers, Hunters and Shades could suck on it.

"Dahlia, I didn't know you could read," a voice interrupted her thoughts as she sank down in a beanbag and opened up the book. She looked up to see the cheery face of her best friend. "Are you possessed? Is this really you? Do I need to call a Healer?"

"You will in a minute," she said casually, "because I'm about to shove _your_ book so far up your fucking arse, you won't ever be able to sit down again."

"Ooh, kinky. Is that a promise?"

Alice Longbottom was a beautiful person. This was not a fact that centred around her looks, though it could not be denied that she had been graced with some damn well cute ones. Her hair was light, wavy and chopped short to her shoulders, her smile balancing between cheeky and kind. Her eyebrows were dark blonde and expressive, her cherub cheeks permanently painted with a faint pink that made her look all the cheerier, and she had doll-like hands that were always clean, her nails trimmed and currently painted a deep burgundy. She wore pastel pink dresses and cream robes. Because she was just that sort of person.

But she was not beautiful because she liked to present herself in an aesthetically appealing way. It was because she was bubbly and loud and a die-hard optimist. Because she found humour in most situations and love in her heart for most people. It was not simply her smile that was kind but the girl herself – she nursed birds with broken wings, helped her father garden his plants despite her disgust with dirt, saw past the aggression and anger of girls with gentle names but not so gentle temperaments. She was a loyal friend.

She was also fucking annoying sometimes.

"You knock me sick," Dahlia informed her.

Alice threw her legs over Dahlia's. Picking up her book, she said, "Why do you lie to yourself so much, Dahlia? I'm, like, the reason for your existence."

"The reason I want to _end_ my existence, maybe."

In response, she leaned over and licked her face.

"Aw, you fucking tramp!" Dahlia all but squawked. She pretended to retch, wiping her cheek vigorously. "What the fuck happened to your supposed fear of unhygienic shit?"

"I decided to trust that you're a clean person," Alice said, though there was a grimace hovering at the corners of her mouth as if she was tasting regret.

"I'm not."

"Ew."

" _Ew_ yourself! I'm not the one licking someone's damn face."

Alice waggled her eyebrows. "You know you want to." At her disgust, she laughed. "Just hit me up any time and we can have at it."

"I would rather lick a cactus."

"That sounds like it'd hurt," she said mildly.

Knowing that she could never win this one, Dahlia settled for flipping her off and pointedly began to read. Alice's barely suppressed laugh was the last sound she was properly conscious of before she managed to lose herself in the grimy, gas-lit streets of Victorian London. Her latest read was a three hundred-and-something paged novel about a Miss Hattie Mayfair and her companion, Rose Smith, two witches who were investigating a string of mysterious deaths around the city after Rose's sister had been revealed to be one of the victims. It was positively gripping and she knew that, once she was paid at the end of this week, she was probably buying it.

For now, however, she had to deal with devouring it in whatever snatches of free time she could manage to grab.

She read, savouring each word on each page, and outside this world of horse-drawn carriages, quaint language and witches who concealed their wands in parasols, time ticked away. Before she knew it, there was a polite cough and one of the workers – worn face, toothy smile, stocky build – was informing them that the shop was closing up and it was time to leave, please, thank you.

Dahlia returned her book to whence it came from while Alice drifted over to the counter to buy hers. She let her fingers trail over the spines of countless more as she walked slowly towards the door. A bell tinkled to notify Alice that she had let herself out and she rested against the window, waiting for her to follow suit.

The January night sky was a pitch-black blanket studded with endless stars that did nothing to warm her. There was still an unforgivable bite to the air, ice made gas to chill her to the bone despite her many layers. She scowled at it, mostly because she was Dahlia Darzi and she frequently scowled at many things, and huffed, her breath misting out as a quick white puff. A part of her noted this in amusement; the rest of her was much more concerned with ducking her face down into her scarf in search of some warmth.

"Hey," Alice said a little breathlessly when she emerged from Flourish and Blotts a minute and a half later. She winced at the cold, pulling on her leather gloves with pink fingers. "I'm about to head to Nala's to get St Barney. You want to come with?"

"You mean Fat Ginger?" Dahlia smirked.

"His _name_ is _St Barnable Lawrence!"_ she hissed. "And you _know_ it."

Ever since she had bought the cat the summer before second year, Alice's very fat, very ginger cat had been called St Barnable Lawrence about as many times as Harry Potter had survived the Killing Curse. Multiple times but not frequently enough. Alice had recently taken it upon herself to bring back his "true" name – but even Fat Ginger thought his name was Fat Ginger. It was a hopeless quest. Futile.

Alice hadn't been a Hufflepuff for no reason, however.

Dahlia snorted. "You're never going to get us to call him St Barnabus Lorenzo or whatever the fuck it is – "

"St Barnable Lawrence!"

" – so you might as well give up now," she continued as if she hadn't been interrupted.

"I refuse," Alice declared, turning her nose up in disdain. The tip of it was rubbed raw by the cold, almost as luminous as Rudolph's. "Are you coming or not?"

Dahlia's stomach answered for her. Not even embarrassed, she patted it proudly and grinned. "Nah, I'm fucking starving."

"Nala's house has food."

"Yeah, but is it my mum's? Yeah, didn't freaking think so."

The two girls pulled each other into a quick hug before they parted ways. A tremendous CRACK! split open the air behind her as Alice apparated off to the Soyinka household over in West Bromwich, leaving Dahlia and a few stragglers to make their way home by themselves. Hand clasped around her wand once again, she slowly made her way down the winding street, breathing in the sights in all their glory.

This was another thing Dahlia was fond of. Though the closing shift of the day was often taxing, it meant that she could later walk down Diagon Alley at night when the stars were bright and the lamps danced with floating orbs of calming yellow light and the entire street falling asleep on either side of her. There weren't many shops that stayed open in the main street after daylight hours so the ancient buildings were dark and silent, though they remained unthreatening. Without the hustle and bustle of activity, it was easier to see what was so blatant about this place: it _breathed_ magic.

The magic that made up each nerve and tendon and fibre of her body like starlight. She was a network of arteries and muscles and organs that flowed with blood and magic; the energy crackled at her fingertips, sparking the air with so much _potential._ A miracle made flesh, wrapped up in tangled black hair and glorious, deep brown skin – walking, breathing, _belonging_ to this wonderful, magical world that centred around a cobblestone street tucked away in the middle of London. When it felt like it was just her walking through Diagon Alley, it almost felt as if the magic was whispering to her.

 _Witch_ , it said.

She was a witch.

"Agh! – fuck – gosh fucking _damn it_." A crash cut short the beauty of the moment. Dahlia whipped around on instinct, her head snapping towards the direction of the sound. "Ow."

Of course.

Who else would it be but James fucking Potter?

"What the fuck are you doing?" Dahlia asked, her voice incredulous and tired and not even the slightest bit surprised. She realised her wand was out, that it was lit and illuminating the bedraggled face of the infamous boy himself.

He blinked.

Squinted.

And then: "Darzi! It's Darzi, right? The girl from – the girl from The Harpy. Who makes really shit palaces?"

She quirked an unamused eyebrow. Honestly, did boys come with an instruction manual on how to be the most annoying things on this fucking planet or was it just wired into them? "You're drunk, aren't you." She phrased it as a statement because there really wasn't anything else he could be.

Glassy eyes, red cheeks, clumsy words. Not to mention the fact that he stank like an open bar. And was collapsed against a stack of crates for God knew what reason.

"Pretty much," he agreed. "I'm bleeding too."

She glanced at where he was pointing. He _was_ , in fact, bleeding. He must've fallen over before – hence the all too _eloquent_ shout that had startled the living daylights out of her – and scraped his knees because his jeans were torn and there were little gashes and scratches crisscrossing the pale, pink skin.

"So you are," she said.

"Inside and out," he continued. Her eyebrows drew together in a frown of confusion – which quickly turned into a startled jump when he nearly bawled, "I'M NOT IN LOVE WITH CONSTANCE. YOU WERE RIGHT!"

She stared in shock. "Er…"

"I was thinking about it while I was drinking in one of the bars," he said. His shoulders were shaking from the revelation. Or the cold. "Thinking about _why_ I thought I wanted to marry her. And I realised… I didn't. I was so caught up in thinking that everyone falls in love with the right person at a young age that I just…"

"That's…" Dahlia put out the light in her wand and shoved her hands back into her pockets awkwardly. What did one even _say_ to something like that? Why the fuck was she even _here?_ "Unfortunate."

"She never supported me!" he burst out and he was both angry and hurt. "She thought my writing was stupid and that I would get over it. She didn't like it when I just wanted to stay in and write instead of going out. She didn't like it when I wanted to do _anything_ that wasn't what she wanted. She always kicked up a fuss. But I thought it was okay because what she wanted to do was still fun at the end of the day."

"That's shit," Dahlia agreed. She took a step back. "I'd stick around and listen – " No, she wouldn't. " – but I need to get home."

"The only time she was okay with staying in was when she wanted a shag – wait, what?" He blinked dazedly at her. "Don't you want to stay and chat?"

"About your ex-girlfriend?" she said flatly.

"It doesn't have to be about her," he said. He stumbled to his feet. "It can be about anything you want. You know what, we don't even have to _talk_."

Her mouth fell open in shock. Was this – Oh God, she had to be in a nightmare. There was no way that she was standing in Diagon Alley with James _fucking Potter_ after he'd spent the evening convincing her that he was in love with his ex-girlfriend and then had discovered that no, actually, he wasn't and that he wouldn't mind snogging her. Because even Merlin himself wouldn't make this boy that stupid.

"Are you – are you hitting on me?" she hissed. "After going on about fucking _Constance Evermore_ for God knows how many hours today?"

"Yes. No. I don't know," he whined. He ran his hands over his face blearily. "I'm drunk, man. I don't know anymore."

"Being drunk doesn't excuse you for being a twat," she shot back.

" _Am_ I being a twat?"

"YES."

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't mean to be."

"You don't thinking suggesting we hook up after you went on about your ex-girlfriend – who you wanted to fucking _propose_ to, by the way – is a dick move? Jesus fucking _Christ_ , are you for real?"

James bit his lip anxiously. "I honestly didn't mean to offend you. I just… I don't know, I figured it'd be good to get my mind off it. I'm not going to lie to you, it wouldn't mean anything for the two of us. It'd be just a bit of fun, you know? I won't lie and make out like it'll be something more if it won't be."

Of course, he didn't. That had been James Potter's motto back in Hogwarts. Snog girls, shag girls, whatever the fuck he did – all of it had been very clearly under the understanding that none of it meant anything. James Potter had simply been looking for fun and anyone who had come to him had been after the same thing.

It wasn't an idea Dahlia found particularly pleasing but she couldn't say much – after all, she was best friends with Cassidy Greengrass, a girl who had done the very same. It was better to open about one's lack of commitment than to string someone along like she had known some people to do, after all.

Still, that didn't mean she appreciated the honesty right now.

"I'm not fucking interested in doing _anything_ with you," she spat. "For a whole list of reasons, actually. I'd rather jump off a cliff."

He blinked again. "Oh. Okay. What's the list?" He didn't sound offended, only curious, and it merely served to irritate Dahlia even more. She hated boys. She honestly hated them.

"You're James Potter!"

"And?"

She threw her hands in the air. "You're a fucking walking STD, that's what! Who can be weirdly committed to a relationship when he wants!"

"What on…" He screwed up his face in confusion. "That's kinda mean, you know."

"I'm a mean person," she shot back. "And besides. Even if you weren't a walking STD, your specky-four-eyed git of a brother broke up with one of my best friends! I'm not going near a Potter for the next five centuries because of that!"

"What?" he spluttered. "What does Al have to do with – oh shit, you're one of Hale's friends, aren't you? The psycho one that kept telling Al to crawl in a hole and die?" Realisation dawned on him.

"The fuck did you just call me?"

"I called you psycho. Do you have a problem with that now?"

"You'd best shut up before I hex you to fucking Africa," she threatened, whipping out her wand. "Although you'd probably just ask some other poor, unsuspecting girl to fucking shag you on a crate if I did."

"I would _not!_ " he cried indignantly. "And besides what is it to you if I did?"

"Nothing! In fact, I'd love to see them all fucking reject you!"

"They would _not!_ " he said. Then, he added, "And even if they did, they'd sure as hell give me better reasons than you."

"What's so bad about my reasons?" she demanded, stepping forward until she was almost face to face with him – or face to shoulder. Whatever it was. "You _are_ a walking STD and your specky-four-eyed git of a brother _did_ break up with my best friend."

"Well, your best friend broke up with my specky-four-eyed git of a brother too! It was a mutual break up!"

"And it was _his_ fault!" she exclaimed.

The two of them had pressed forward until there was little room between them. It swelled with the heat of her anger and his harsh breaths, their volley of insults and ridiculous argument, until they both noticed the pocket of space, one that would be so easy to reach across. James swallowed.

And then in an entirely too dramatic shout, he cried, "DO YOU WANT TO KISS ME AS MUCH AS I WANT TO KISS YOU?"

"Not in the slightest," Dahlia hissed.

She apparated away.

* * *

 **DISCLAIMER: The line "Do you want to kiss me as much as I want to kiss you?" has been in half a hundred movies/shows and I'm not sure where it originally came from, but it's inspired by all of them.**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE: Ahem. Overdramatic, much?**

 **Dahlia's such a strange character to write because she's so forceful and rude, but at the same time, I love her and want you to love her too. And James is... a lot better than he seems in this introductory chapter, I promise.**

 **As always, lemme know what you thought in the review box below. Do you like James? How do you feel about Dahlia's not-so-secret cynicism? How many times does she swear in this chapter? Favourite line?**

 **xo**


	3. THREE: Hell Hath No Fury

**THREE. HELL HATH NO FURY**

"Why is a pancake called a pancake? It doesn't taste anything like a cake."

It was Sunday morning and six girls were piled into a large kitchen. Four of them were hard at work, the others sprawled at the table. To the absolute surprise of no one, Dahlia was one of the lazy two.

"Nala, would you shut – " one of the hard workers began in frustration. She paused in the middle of flipping one of the pancakes over. "You know what, I don't actually know."

"Exactly!" Nala exclaimed. She shook her head in amazement. "The English language. What a strange thing."

Reagan, the pancake-flipper, rolled her eyes and carried on with her job. A smile that played with the edges of her mouth revealed her amusement. Still, she said sternly, "Are you going to go on about the fucking English language or actually help us out? You too, Dahlia. Don't think we don't notice you not helping either."

Dahlia propped her bare feet onto the chair next to her and crossed them at the ankles. She flashed a sardonic smile. "Yeah, I think I'm good," she said.

It was an argument they had regularly, though 'argument' was likely too heavy a word for it. Once a week every week, the lot of them met up for breakfast, a small way of ensuring that they maintained contact now that they no longer shared a dormitory in Hogwarts. They were the 2A girls from Hufflepuff, some of the very finest from the house who had graduated the previous summer, and their friendship was a wonderful thing to behold. A fortress that had miraculously withstood the test of time, even with that nasty business back when they had been in Dormitory 2.6A.

Outsiders looking in had always marvelled at the strange dynamic brought into existence by the six. Each was a force to be reckoned with in their own ways: Dahlia volatile, Nova calm – Alice outgoing, Reagan shy – Nala whimsical while Cassidy had her two feet planted firmly on the ground. Each with their separate quirks and contradicting personalities and a love for crass language (though it had to be said that Dahlia was the guiltiest of this) and somehow, _somehow_ , they had made it work. It required a whole lot of honesty, a hard shell and a perseverance to preserve the threads that kept them attached to one another until they were iron chains –

But they weren't Hufflepuffs for nothing, after all.

But yes, this argument, for lack of a better word, was a pretty frequent occurrence now that they had to make their own Sunday morning breakfasts. Whenever they met up at their favourite café in Hogsmeade, the only issue was making sure they all fit in the booth, but breakfast at someone's _house_ was an entirely different story. Nova and Reagan usually took control, both the eldest siblings of their respective families and familiar enough with cooking to not butcher it all. Cass was usually a helping hand, though as a pureblood, she was also far less experienced and was usually relegated to the smaller tasks. Alice was… Alice.

And then there was just Nala and Dahlia. The first was terrible at cooking – she had accidentally set fire to the toast the first time they'd cooked at someone's house – while the latter was simply lazy.

Hence the argument.

"I swear to God, Darzi, I will jam this spatula in your eye," Reagan was now promising.

"Now, now, Davies," she said mockingly. "No need to get so violent. I don't know if you heard, but this is a _peaceful_ environment, okay? Kindly take your hateful bullshit and leave it at the door."

There was a unanimous snort around the busy kitchen. Dahlia Darzi preaching peace? The irony of it all was incredible.

"Just shut up and wash the damn plates," Cassidy said from where she directed a knife to cut the peppers. It slowly chopped away in front of her, as if grasped by an invisible man. "They're in that cupboard over there."

Dahlia stretched out of the chair, contorting her back as she pretended to reach for it. "I can't," she whined. "It's too _far."_

"You lazy piece of shit."

"Fuck off."

"This is _my_ house."

Dahlia sent her a lazy smile. "Not anymore. I've decided to take it."

At that point, Alice whirled away from where she was hovering behind Reagan as she made the pancakes and to the cupboard containing the plates. Not breaking a step, she murmured a spell and they rose out of their pile, following her as she twirled like a ballerina towards Dahlia and dumped them all in her lap. She ignored the grunt and successive curse.

"Wash the plates, Dahlia," she said, patting her on the head and then spinning away.

She watched her go with a scowl. "You can't even fucking dance!" she called after her.

Her only answer was a laugh.

Cass smirked. "Best get washing," she said. The knife began to slowly push the peppers to one side of the chopping board.

Dahlia shot her a venomous look and kicked away the chair her feet had been resting on. Her wand sent the plates flying over to the sink. "Fuck off," she repeated and then went to wash the damn plates.

Fifteen minutes later, they were all assembled around a veritable feast. Having opted for an English breakfast this Sunday, each plate had two triangles of toast made golden with dairy-free butter, two Quorn sausages (slightly burnt thanks to Nala's attempt to help), a couple of rashers of turkey bacon (except on Cass' plate), a couple of tomatoes, fried eggs, chopped mushrooms and chopped peppers (because Dahlia bloody well loved them) as well as a sea of baked beans. The oak table groaned under the weight of a teapot of Earl Grey, a pitcher of coffee, a jug of pumpkin juice and another of water. Pancakes were stacked high on a plate, dripping with a liberal coat of chocolate syrup; next to it sat a huge bowl of vanilla ice cream, preserved with the use of a handy charm.

They sat back and drank it in.

"We're such fat shits," Cass said and because it was Cass, they all cracked a laugh. Of the six of them, she had struggled with her weight the most until her ordeal had peaked in sixth year when she had been diagnosed with bulimia. Even now, two years later, each little victory meant a lot. The fact they had this much food was nothing short of miraculous.

"Who the fuck cares?" Dahlia shrugged. Her stomach growled in anticipation. "I fucking love food."

And with that, she shoved half a piece of toast in her mouth.

Directly opposite her, Nova scrunched up her nose. She could already tell what was about to slip out of her mouth – sure enough, Nova grimaced and, just as she knew she would, she deadpanned, "Classy."

Purely to annoy her, Dahlia flashed her the widest smile she could. Nova nearly threw her water back up. "I am, aren't I?" she said happily.

"You're so fucking disgusting," she complained.

"Well, it's not like I'm having tea with the bloody Queen, is it?"

"That's where you're wrong," Alice chimed in from her left. She speared half a mushroom on her fork and placed it onto her tongue delicately. " _I_ am a queen."

"Well, then, I guess it's time for the next French revolution because I sure as hell am not bowing down to you."

"What?" Her mouth fell open in shock. "Why not? I would be a _great_ ruler!"

She probably would. Alice was the sort of girl who captured people's hearts easily and then proceeded to treasure them. She had the sort of easy confidence and charisma that would win her the loyalty of the people within an instant.

"Nah," Reagan said. "You're not cutthroat enough."

This was also true.

"I am too!" she insisted.

The rest of them burst into laughter. When they recovered, Dahlia smacked a hand on her back and amended, "I'll be cutthroat for you. Put me by your side on that throne and no one will mess with us."

"Merlin," Nova said. "You might as well send all the boys in the country to their deaths."

They shared another laugh. Dahlia's disdain for all things male was no secret, especially with her running around Hogwarts and declaring it to anyone who gave her so much as half a chance to. She was fierce in her derision and Alice often chided her for championing inequality, the others far too amused with her outbursts to do the same. Dahlia's response was more or less always the same: was it really misandry when she hated _most_ of the human race anyway?

To which Alice always rolled her eyes and asked the ceiling why she even bothered.

"Maybe we should," Dahlia said now, grinning in a way that could only be described as evil. "The world's first all-female state! What a blessing!"

Naturally, Nala opposed this. "What about kids?"

"What about them?"

"How would we have kids without the guys around?"

Clearly enjoying Dahlia's vision, Cass shrugged and said, "Artificial insemination."

"... Banks," Reagan said at the same time.

The first stopped and then grimaced. "That's a nice way of putting it. Really classy, you know?"

"Oh, fuck off!" The points of her ears burned crimson. "You know what I meant."

"Do I? Do I _really?_ "

Nala interrupted their bickers with a snort. "Are you telling me that _you_ of all people, Cass, would prefer artificial insemination than… you know, actual sex?"

"Are you insinuating that I have sex a lot?" she asked in amusement. When Nala only sent her a look, she laughed and then sighed wistfully. "I actually haven't gotten with anyone in _ages_ , you know. This bloody internship leaves me drained all week. Come weekend, I just want to relax and watch the MagiVision. I even wear _joggers_ when I do it."

"You're fucking lying to me," Dahlia deadpanned. She was promptly flipped off.

"I can't even remember the last time I snogged someone, let alone shagged them. And to think, I once used to kiss boys on a regular basis. Such is the price to pay when you want to be on the Wizengamot." She sniffed dramatically.

"I don't know how you do it," Nala said. "You're the only one of us working in the Ministry. How does it feel to be so… old?"

"Old?! I'm still eighteen!"

"Yeah, but… you're still a proper _adult_ now. I'm still living at home with no job."

"Same!" Reagan exclaimed. She reached across the table to high five her comrade. "I have absolutely _no_ bloody direction in my life and here Cass is with an internship in the DMLE and her own freaking house. You're, like, a mile ahead of us, Cass."

She blushed. "Shut up. It's not like I bought this house with my own money. I'm still on my family grounds, I'm just living in the outhouse instead of the manor."

Of course, all this explanation gained her was a barrage of teases from the girls about how rich she was and whether they should all be bowing down to her instead. Naturally, Dahlia led this because she was Dahlia Darzi and had the most creative arsenal of insults known to man. There was no resentment in any of this, of course, though it would've been easy to have felt it.

Dahlia had grown up in the grittier streets of Oldham. Her dad was a Maths teacher with seven mouths to feed, her parents both immigrants all the way from Jammu and Kashmir back in India. They had always made sure that their children did not want for anything, that their stomachs were full and the lights kept on and they had every opportunity they could find. But they had still struggled to make ends meet sometimes – they still did.

Perhaps in the darkest nights, it was easy for Dahlia to resent Cass. For Cassidy Greengrass had grown up in this valley her entire life, walked through hallways of marble and money, had been given anything Dahlia wanted thrice over. Her father had an overseas business, her grandfather had been on the Wizengamot, she was the heir to a fortune and she had easily moved into an outhouse that was twice as big as the Darzi household because she could do that.

Fortunately, it was currently a bright winter morning so Dahlia did not feel anything of the sort.

Conversations moved on from Cass' wealth to what life had been like for them the past week. Nova's job in Twilfitt and Tatting's had been entirely unremarkable, though Dahlia's passionate rant about The K more than made up for it. Alice was enjoying her shifts at the Leaky, especially because it kept her close to her little brother (a boy named Archie who was Khayri's age) and the rest of her family. Cass had been teamed up with another intern called Akira Himura to study some legislation or something.

"He's fairly cute as well," she mused. "Twenty two years old, dark hair, great arse. Maybe I should ask him out on a date."

Nala and Reagan were both unemployed. The first was enjoying the freedom, the second more than a little bit frustrated at the lack of response to her applications. Alice offered a job at the Leaky but she shrugged it away, citing her inability to handle large crowds and lots of interaction as the main reason.

"What do you want to do?" Nova asked, assuming the role of coaxing her best friend into action once again. It was something she was familiar with, for Reagan had always needed coaxing to make serious decisions whether it was studying or looking at career prospects.

"Fuck knows," was her groan. "Does anyone but Cass know what they want to do?"

The answer to that was a resounding no.

* * *

"It's snowing," Nova said.

They were in the middle of Diagon Alley, wandering the street with no real aim. It was a world away from Cass' house, slap-bang in the centre of London while the Greengrasses stayed tucked away in some valley in Wales or wherever the fuck their estate was. Heating charms from the buildings were exacerbated by the swell of bodies so Dahlia wasn't feeling very cold, but the sudden sensation of snow on her head sent a shiver through her.

"Thanks for that, Einstein," she replied. "You're really smart, you know!"

"Fuck off, Dahlia," she said absent-mindedly.

"Rude." She turned to the others. "Are we going to stay in the snow or go somewhere I can feel my fucking fingers?" She wasn't that cold, not really, but Dahlia had a habit of phrasing everything in harsh terms and she knew that soon enough, she _wouldn't_ be able to feel her fingers.

"Yeah, let's get out of the cold," Alice agreed, jerking her head towards the closest shop. Moving mannequins displaying dark, wintry outfits beckoned them from the windows. Alice grabbed Dahlia's hand and began to lead the group towards it. "This'll do fine."

They opened the door the same moment two customers on the other side stepped forward to do the same. It flew back to crash against one of them, the sound of wood on a head scaring the living daylights out of them all. A worker rushed forward.

"Mr Potter, are you okay?" they cried, helping the man up.

For a brief second, Dahlia honestly wondered whether she had accidentally killed the Saviour of the Wizarding World – but then the figure shifted and she realised he wasn't so much as a forty-something year old Auror as someone who had just hit his twenties.

"Yeah, I'm fine," James said, wincing. He glanced over at his companion. "Thanks for the help, Al."

"No problem," his brother said, struggling to stifle his laughter.

They turned to look at the people on the other side of the door and then froze at the sight of the 2A girls. Just behind her, Dahlia heard Nova take in a sharp breath of air and knew her eyes were fixed not on the injured party but Al. He was similarly unconcerned with the rest of them, staring at her and only her.

One thing that had always irritated Dahlia about Albus Potter was the fact that he was so bloody hard to read. No matter what she had done, she had never quite managed to bother him – all she had received for her various insults had been an amused smirk and a calm that had managed to both annoy her and earn her respect. She supposed it was the Slytherin in him.

Now, however? Their sudden appearance had caught him off-guard too quickly to school his features. It was plain to see that he was every bit as in love with Nova as she was with him, to read the longing in the twitch of his fingers, the bitter regret underscoring his acceptance that the two of them were simply over. Dahlia hadn't seen him since The Break-Up but now she had, she could see why calling him a traitor wasn't particularly accurate at all.

"Nova," he finally managed.

Her voice was just as weak. "Al. Er. Hi."

"Hi."

The nine of them stood in silence. And then Alice, ever the ice breaker, exclaimed, "It's good to see you two! Sorry for nearly knocking you out, James! It was our fault, entirely."

Was it?

"No worries," he said, waving the apology away. He flashed her an easy grin which faded a little by the time it got to Dahlia. "Er. Hi, Darzi."

She appraised him coolly. "Potter."

It had been two days since she had last seen him. Their last encounter had been one of the most bizarre in her life – and with her group of friends, that said something – in which he had grieved the death of his relationship with his girlfriend, nearly cried because he had reached enlightenment and had discovered that their relationship had not been as serious as he had thought, and then had suggested that he and Dahlia should hook up. Just for banter.

"I've been meaning to talk to you, actually," he said, clearly thinking along the same lines. He rubbed the back of his neck. "About the other night."

There was a mystified whisper from somewhere towards the back of the group, probably from Nala, but Dahlia ignored it. She scowled. "If you ask me for a shag one more time, I will honestly punch you in the face."

The worker gasped incredulously. The rest of them nearly choked on air.

"Wait – what – _shag?_ " Nala exclaimed, loudest of all.

James turned red. "That's not what I was going to do," he said. He coughed awkwardly under the weight of everyone's dumbfounded stares, Al's the most horrified of the lot.

"Good," she said acerbically.

"Uh." He shifted on the balls of his feet, nervous and uncomfortable and his skin itching at the never-ending barrage of shock; Dahlia felt no sympathy for him, the memory of the other night still fresh in her mind. She still didn't know what had possessed her to humour his conversation, but this showed just what being nice to someone really resulted in. "We should probably talk? In private, you know?"

She eyed him in disdain. "Probably not."

"Dahlia," Alice hissed, none too discreetly stomping on her feet.

"I'm just trying to apologise."

"Then apologise."

"Well, I would like to do it when there aren't fifty people listening into our conversation," he said irritably.

"Can't always get what we want, can we?"

"Oh my fucking _Merlin_ – "

A pointed cough from behind them cut them off. "Um, excuse me, can you get out of the doorway, please? Some of us are trying to get inside." There was an embarrassed flurry of movement as they hurried to let the woman and her daughters pass. Alice tugged Dahlia to the side and the others followed like they were linked in a daisy chain until the six of them were crowded next to the Potters. She sniffed, "Took you long enough."

They watched her go, their embarrassment automatically morphing into annoyance, and Dahlia had to seriously battle the urge to bite something back.

"Can we talk then?" James said.

His voice was much closer than she had expected. Jerking away, she turned her head to see that she had almost been pressed up against him, strands of her knotted black hair splayed across the fur lining his cloak, the faint trace of his shower gel curling around her. Her mouth instantly flattened, twisted down; her eyebrows slammed together.

She darted her eyes around at her friends to see if they'd be of any help but it was of no use: Nala had managed to get a wayward hanger tangled the hood that had slipped off her afro and was busy extracting it with the help of Cass; Nova, on the other hand, had somehow found herself tucked into Al's side and the two were muttering to Reagan and Alice about how old people never had no manners when it came to teenagers. She had been abandoned to James freaking Potter of all people.

"No," she snapped. "We can't. I promised my little brother I'd hang out with him and I'm not going to bail on that for some git who tried to get into my pants."

And then, regardless of propriety or manners, she apparated away from him once again.

* * *

To her credit, Dahlia _had_ promised Khayri she'd hang out with him, but it had been an airy "It'll happen when I want it to happen, you little twerp," just before she'd whisked away to Cass' place for breakfast. And because she actually did like his company, she spent the afternoon with him.

At Khayri's pleas, they sat cross-legged on her bed, Euripides fast asleep in the corner, surrounded by sweets (both Muggle and magical, of course) and whatever first year textbooks had survived her years at Hogwarts. _The Standard Book of Spells: Grade 1_ remained open, its spine cracked, its pages worn and stained with smudges of ink and loved.

Technically, letting her brother practice magic at home was probably a violation of the law, but Dahlia figured that loads of magical kids in all-magical families did the same before they went off to Hogwarts. Maybe they didn't _master_ it properly, but they were certainly more familiar with it than she had been on her first day so it didn't hurt to let Khayri learn some.

Besides, the kid made her pretty damn proud.

Eventually, they abandoned the magic once Khayri nearly tossed her wand out of the window in an enthusiastic, loosely-held attempt at swishing and flicking it, and retreated downstairs to watch the tv.

"I'm busy," Jaspar grunted, pressing his controller frantically. On the screen, there was a burst of gunfire and a soldier flailed in the dust, blood exploding out of him. "Come back later."

"But we want the tv _now,"_ Khayri whined.

He didn't get a reply. Dahlia rolled her eyes and smacked the back of his head before turning to the youngest. "We'll watch tv later. Do your homework while you wait."

"I don't want to," he groaned. "You don't even _do_ Maths at Hogwarts."

"But you do it at primary so you're going to get it done," she said. Her tone brooked no arguments, even when he gave her his best puppy dog eyes, two round chocolate drops melting into her, so he finally groaned and stomped over to get his bookbag. Dahlia dropped down onto an armchair. "Where's Dad?" she asked Jaspar.

He shrugged. "At his desk. Marking homework probably. Why?"

"Just asking."

He didn't reply.

By now, Dahlia was used to it. It wasn't that Jaspar was purposefully rude or didn't like her – she was his sister, he was obligated to like her or Mum would have his head – but he wasn't like her. He didn't thrive off chaotic situations and didn't like interacting with people, even if it was just to tell them to piss off. He was an introvert through and through, had been ever since she had returned after second year and he hadn't been able to carry a long conversation with someone who had been virtually a stranger to him. True, it had hurt at the beginning, but she had learnt to accept it.

Jaspar liked comic books and video games and was an ace at Computer Science at school. He didn't mind sitting with someone, but he preferred it to be quiet. Dahlia wasn't quiet very often, but she could make an exception for him.

"Sana's in the garden with Mum," he offered after a while.

"And Danyal?"

"Out with his mates."

She made a face. "He's always out with his mates."

"So are you," Jaspar said, a small smile playing on his lips. He suddenly pressed down on a myriad of buttons, almost rising out of his seat. His character annihilated a string of enemy soldiers in a wash of red and he grinned at his win.

"Oh, come off it, you _know_ I wouldn't be able to hang out with them so much if I wasn't a witch," she scoffed. She shifted until she could properly sprawl in the armchair, legs thrown over the side, her hair dangling down the other. Small sparks crackled out of her wand. "The only thing letting me out is the fact that I can poof away from danger in a second."

Khayri frowned from where he kneeled beside the coffee table, his work spread out in front of him. "How do you work out what three thousand and seventy four divided by seven is?"

"Bus shelter method," Jaspar said, eyes still trained on the tv.

"M'kay. Why?"

"I don't know, you just do."

"But if I was a Muggle, there'd be no way Mum and Dad would let me out so much," she continued. "Just because I'm a girl."

"Because there are creeps out there."

"What, and creeps don't go after boys now? Boys are immune to it all?"

"Well, no. But they're more likely to go after a girl than a guy. Especially since you're Indian so there's a higher chance of a racist drunk starting something."

Dahlia scowled. "Bloody men," she grumbled, crossing her arms. "They ruin everything and then they think they should _run_ everything. I hate them all."

"Thanks."

She rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean."

He didn't reply.

Her dad walked into the living room then, glasses balancing wearily on his nose. He looked tired, jet black hair tousled in that way that suggested he had been tugging it in frustration. Glimmers of silver threaded through the thick mop. He paused next the sofa Jaspar was sat on, rubbing his stubble.

"I can't do it," he said. Unlike Mum, his English was perfect. Accent crisp, polished. "Why are my Year Eights so stupid?"

Dahlia snorted and tilted her head further back so she could peer at him upside down. "Hi, Dad."

"Hi, _phool_. What are you talking about?"

"Dismantling the patriarchy."

"Such light conversation," he said drily. He spotted Khayri by the coffee table. "Is that Maths?"

"The bus shelter method," Khayri answered promptly.

"Oh, God, the bus shelter method. I don't think my Year Eights know how to do even that." He shook his head mournfully. "Don't become a teacher, children. Marking homework will destroy you."

"Do it later," Dahlia said.

"Would if I could, _phool._ I have to give it back tomorrow like I always do. Monday is the day we go through the homework and get a new one. Speaking of tomorrow, your Auntie Supriya is coming for dinner in the evening. Your uncle and the kids are visiting his family in Birmingham so she's going to stay over."

There was a collective groan. "I don't _want_ Auntie Supriya to come," she whined.

"Well, she is, so make sure you come back from work straight away," Dad said. He patted her on the chin as that was the closest thing he could reach and then pushed his glasses back up his nose. "I'm going to go mark the rest of this homework. Wish me luck."

"Good luck."

"Have fun!"

"See ya, Dad."

He ruffled Jaspar's hair and left the room.

Dahlia waited until his footsteps were steady on the landing upstairs. Then, she pushed the soles of her feet off the side of the armchair so she crashed dramatically to the ground. "Kill me."

She fucking hated Auntie Supriya.

* * *

Dahlia's father had two sisters. Sohana, who lived down in London and occasionally called to ask for some money, and Supriya, who lived in Oldham and occasionally called to spread gossip. Supriya was by far Dahlia's least favourite relative, a tall woman with stick-thin wrists that jingled with bangles and a long neck adorned with gaudy jewellery. She was a lover of paan and anything that screamed tradition – which meant she and Dahlia were often at loggerheads about some issue or the other.

"You should really wear Asian clothes now, Dahlia," she said the second she clapped eyes on her. "You're nineteen now, you're too old for this."

Battling a fearsome scowl, she glanced down at her attire. Black trousers, black polo, Harpy apron. "I just came back from work."

"Where do you work again?" Auntie Supriya asked.

"A café."

"Which one?"

"One that's not here."

"Dahlia," her mum said warningly. She sent Auntie Supriya a strained smile and gently grasped her elbow. "Come now. We eat. _Jaldi._ "

It wasn't a special occasion, but Mum had outdone herself with the food. Three curries sat in a row along the table, steam wafting from them in tendrils that twisted and turned in a dance. They filled the kitchen with the rich aroma of a feast, one that Dahlia readily inhaled, her stomach already quivering in anticipation. Her eyes drank in chicken jalfrezi sizzling with spice, potatoes scattered inside a lamb curry, and a chana masala that almost had her crying with joy. A plate was stacked with warm roti, a bowl displayed white rice.

She fucking loved food.

Auntie Supriya ladled some chana masala onto her plate and tasted. "Oh, good. You didn't make it so salty this time."

Dahlia did not fucking love her aunt.

Dinner passed in the way everyone expected dinner to pass. Auntie Supriya divulged anything racy that had happened in the area, Mum and Dad indulged her and the kids persevered through it, all fake smiles and feigned interest. She made jibes here and there, of course – Dahlia was too modern, Jaspar should really get out more, Khayri was a little _too_ excitable and Sana had to be careful she wasn't writing to a boy because of this new pen pal system. Danyal, like always, was perfect because he was Danyal. The oldest Darzi boy could _never_ do any wrong.

Several times, Dahlia opened her mouth to lay waste to her, but Dad seemed to have a sixth sense about this because he always glanced over and shot her a look before she could.

She settled for shoving a handful of rice into her mouth instead.

Of course, it was never going to last. Noticing after possibly the hundredth time she did this, Auntie Supriya scrunched up her nose. "Dahlia, _beti_ , you really shouldn't eat like your food is running away. You'll never get a husband like that." Brave words from a woman who had stained her teeth from paan.

"Guess it's a good thing I'm not looking for a husband," she said.

Sana snickered into her water. Auntie Supriya did not. "You're nineteen. Of course, you're looking for a husband – or you will be."

"I will _not_." Her voice turned harsh; the tension skyrocketed within seconds. "I don't know where the hell you got that idea from, but it's not happening."

There was a small silence. Her mum broke it with an awkward cough, her worn hands grabbing the plate of roti eagerly. "Only one left! Anyone want it?" she said, loud and eager.

Auntie Supriya ignored her. Deliberately setting down the glass of water in her hand, she stared Dahlia down with a look that was clearly meant to quell any wild Western notions of not marrying. In Dahlia's expert opinion, it was weak and unimpressive just like the rest of her – she held it easily, making sure to eat as messily as usual, her eyes steady on her aunt's.

"You're nineteen years old," the woman began.

"And?"

"And you need to finally grow up," she said. "I've said it time and time again to your parents: you're too wild. I blame the school they sent you off to. I said it from the very beginning that it was a bad idea, that it didn't matter if it was paid for, a private boarding school meant that they couldn't keep an eye on you and make sure that you didn't become this way. Didn't I, bhai?" She turned to Dad, his face as blank as stone. "I told you that this would happen, but you said you trusted your daughter. And now look at her! Saying she won't get married, refusing to wear Indian clothes – "

"What's it to you if I don't get married?" Dahlia demanded loudly. "You're not the one who'll be with the bloody guy. It's not _your_ life that will change forever, it's mine."

"Dahlia," Dad shot warningly. "Watch your language. And Supriya, drop the subject."

"How can I? She's clearly off the rails."

"I don't want Dahlia to get married," Khayri interjected. He leaned over to grasp her left hand and squeezed. Though she wouldn't say it in front of her aunt in a million years, the gesture of support filled her with a burst of emotion she couldn't describe. "I want her to stay here with us."

"It's her duty to get married," Auntie Supriya said.

"This isn't a bloody conscription," Dahlia snapped. Despite the warmth of Khayri's small hand in hers, she could feel a rage stacking up inside block by block – _true_ rage, not the vaguely volatile irritation she so often felt but the sort of destructive force that could ruin countries and fell cities with a single blow. "I'm not a freaking soldier that's being sent off to war. It's my _life._ I don't have a duty to do a goddamn thing."

" _Dahlia."_

"Oh, really? And how are you supposed to have kids?"

"Who said I want kids?" she shot back.

Auntie Supriya looked ready to throw something. A vein in her pulsed dangerously, standing stark against the deep brown. She ground her nails against the engravings on her glass. "Of course, you want kids! You're a woman, you have to have them. What else do you think you were born for? Women were created to give birth to children!"

"I don't have to do a damn _thing,_ " she snarled.

There was a little cough. Sana dabbed at her mouth with the back of her hand and said carefully, "Auntie Supriya, I get what you're saying, but it's Dahlia Didi's choice if she wants to have kids or not. And even if she did want to, she could always adopt one instead."

"Adopt," she said flatly.

Sana nodded. "I mean, it'd be a good thing to do. Give a baby that's already in the world a better life. People adopt children from Africa all the time."

"Don't be ridiculous," Auntie Supriya scoffed.

"The only person being ridiculous here is you!" Dahlia exploded.

God, she couldn't _handle_ it anymore! How could someone be so goddamn ignorant? Who the fuck did her aunt think she was, dictating what Dahlia did with her body? She didn't have an _ounce_ of control over Dahlia's actions, Dahlia's life choices – she was just some sad, aging woman with an _unbelievably_ narrow mind. She wanted to… she wanted to whip out her wand from her bloody apron pocket, jab it right at the woman at the opposite end of the table and see what happened. Maybe turn her into a toad, or make her shrivel up like a prune. Do _something_ other than sit here and hold herself back for the sake of respect.

"I'm being realistic," Auntie Supriya said in an infuriating tone. It was calm. It was smug. It made Dahlia want to throw something at the wall. "You're nineteen years old. You're not in education. What else are you going to do?"

"Support myself, maybe," she retorted.

"Auntie-ji," Jaspar said tentatively, "why do you keep mentioning that she's nineteen like it's important? No one gets married that young anymore."

"I know some people who have."

"And none of them are me," Dahlia said venomously. "And they never will be. It's _my_ life, _my_ body – I decide what I do with it, not you. So I'll thank you kindly to keep your butt out of my business."

"Dahlia!" her dad hissed once again.

There was silence again. For a long moment, not a single member of the Darzi dared to break it. Sohail sat upright, his eyes like thunder: angry, troubled and dark. Dahlia was just as dangerous, simmering with an anger that crackled around her, ready to lash out and strike her aunt down. The tension was palpable, electric in the air and in their mouths, increasing the beats of their hearts by the second.

Dahlia's siblings exchanged wary glances, all too aware of the imminent danger. Of the four of them, only Danyal had yet to speak and, for all anyone knew, he didn't intend to. He drank his water like nothing was going on, tore his roti and mopped up his curry, lounged in his seat like the prince he was – but his eyes betrayed how attentive he really was. They tracked the forbidding glare of their father to Dahlia, Dahlia's unspoken challenge to their aunt and their aunt's answering smirk.

"I only say this out of love for you," she finally said, her voice much softer. Immediately, Dahlia dismissed this with a scoff. "I'm serious. You're my niece and I love you. Which is why I need you to realise that this sort of behaviour, these western beliefs you have aren't right, Dahlia. And you need to realise this sooner rather than later so you can get a headstart on getting married. After all, you're not pale like Sana – it's going to be so much harder for you to find a husband."

She snapped.

Slamming her chair back, Dahlia smacked her hands on the table and stood up with a glare. "I don't want a fucking husband!" she shouted. "The only way I'm getting married is if I find the fucking _darkest,_ most 'western' girl in all of England JUST TO THROW IT IN YOUR FUCKING FACE that _that's_ what I think about marrying for the sake of fucking marrying. You will never drag me down to an altar, I will never promise myself to some _twat_ who cares about my skin colour, and I will _never_ have sex with someone just to pop out a couple of hundred babies because it's what society fucking expects of me. Fuck society and _fuck you too_ , Auntie Supriya. Now get out of my goddamn house."

"DAHLIA!" her parents shrieked.

Her mum turned to her sister-in-law, a rapid apology in Hindi flowing from her mouth. "Supriya, I am so sorry. You know how Dahlia gets about these things, you saw how it was two years ago – "

"That was two years ago," Auntie Supriya hissed viciously. Her cheeks were dark with blood, embarrassed and angry and flustered. "Are you that useless that you don't know how to teach your daughter some manners in two years?"

Mum froze, her eyes wide and glassy, her mouth a perfect O.

"Oi," Danyal finally snapped. "Who the fuck do you think you are speaking to my mum like that?"

For some reason, it worked. Danyal's intervention shut Auntie Supriya up in less than a second. She stilled, shocked that the prized son of the Darzi household had ripped her down in a heartbeat, barely a sound escaping her mouth in her defence. All she could do was stare at him.

"Supriya," their dad said, the name stiff and black with anger. He stood from his seat, jaw clenched so tight he was going to shatter his teeth, chest heaving. "Get in the living room."

"Sohail," she began.

" _Now."_

There were no words. Tears pooling in her eyes, his sister rose, gathering her saree around her carefully, her head bowed. She left the room, shoulders hunched at the prospect of a tongue-lashing from the patriarch of her family, a deafening silence heralding her exit. Dad turned to face Dahlia, his mouth flat with barely-controlled anger. She was still stood up from her dramatic outburst, palms flat against the table and stinging from their assault; at his attention, her spine straightened with pride.

"You stay here," he said quietly. His tone allowed no room for arguments. "And you too, Danyal. The way you both spoke to your buaa was _not acceptable._ "

With that, he turned on his heel and stalked into the living room.

Well.

Dahlia was fucked.

* * *

 **Disclaimer** **: Chapter title taken from the saying** ** _hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,_** **the woman in this case being Dahlia Darzi.  
**  
 **Author's Note:** **I am basing Dahlia's mum's speech off how my own mother talks (she's Bengali and not really that fluent in English), but sorry if it comes off awkward! Also, lemme know if I mess up on the tiny bits of Hindi I'm scattering throughout this piece bc like... I don't speak it.**

 **This was a highly dramatic chapter because wtf is subtlety when you can have Dahlia go off on one instead. It was supposed to have been up last weekend, but uni started and I have been freakin D. At least it's long though?**

 **xo**


	4. FOUR: You Are Not Broken

**FOUR. YOU ARE NOT BROKEN.**

"Aren't you supposed to be grounded?"

Dahlia's hand halted in mid-air, half an inch away from the packet of Sunbites in Alice's hand. She twisted around to see her dad a couple of steps above her on the stairs, hands in his pockets and eyebrows raised, unimpressed. He wasn't angry though which was always a plus. Dad didn't get angry very often but when he did, it wasn't pretty.

"I'm at home, aren't I?" she replied. Her tone wasn't entirely friendly because she wasn't feeling particularly friendly towards her dad at the moment but he ignored it.

"It's sort of implied that you can't bring friends over when you're grounded," he said.

She shrugged. "How was I supposed to know that? I've been living in a magical castle in Scotland for the past seven years."

He sighed. "You're driving me to an early grave, _phool._ " She ignored the endearment. Knowing that there was no use in trying to sweeten her before she was prepared to be, he turned to Alice and offered her a small, rueful smile instead. "Hello, Alice."

"Hi, Mr Darzi," she said tentatively. "Sorry for popping over. I just thought Dahlia could use a shoulder."

"It's alright, dear, you can stay. I was only joking."

He reached down to pat her hair, thought better of it and quietly asked to pass instead. Alice shuffled over to press into Dahlia's side, opening up a small gap for him to take, and he edged past, bounding down the stairs until he entered the living room. Dahlia heard him greet her mum with a soft exclamation, saw him pull her into a small hug and then wheedle the remote off Danyal.

"He doesn't seem that angry anymore," Alice noted.

She scoffed. "That's because he knows I'm in the right. The only reason I'm even grounded is because I have to respect my elders and treat Auntie Supriya like everything she says should be stuck in the Bible or something just because she's his sister."

"Well. You probably shouldn't have told him you respect the dead moth in your bathroom more than her if that's the case."

"Probably not," she agreed. "Doesn't mean I fucking regret it, though."

"Good. From what you said, the woman's full of crap. And you know I don't like to judge people before I've met them – "

"Admirable. Really."

" – but she's someone I have to make an exception for. I don't understand where on _earth_ she gets off deciding what you're going to do with your life. All this gung ho about marriage is just bullshit."

"You can say that again," Dahlia said. She sighed and picked out a handful of crisps from Alice's packet. "She makes out like I'm such a fucking freak for not wanting to get married. What's so wrong about that? I don't want to get married. I can't ever picture myself wanting to. But apparently at nineteen, it needs to be the first thing on my mind."

"Like I said," Alice replied, tilting her head to rest it on her shoulder, "it's all bullshit."

And the thing was that it _was_ all bullshit. Dahlia knew that as sure as she knew her own name. Auntie Supriya's view on the world was exceedingly narrow-minded – she expected everything to work the way she commanded it to and so help anyone who tried to buck the trend. No one was allowed to fail to deliver her expectations, no matter how archaic they were.

But there was something else that cast a shadow of doubt in Dahlia's mind. She didn't particularly enjoy the feeling, for she was a woman who was always secure in what she believed in or said or did – stubborn, some might say, though she didn't really care either way – and self-doubt wasn't a concept she dealt with well. She had felt it, of course, like any other person in the world. Like any other Muggleborn in the world. But she hated it.

She hated not knowing whether this was normal. Though she knew that there were many people out there who didn't believe in the constitution of marriage, she didn't know if this was for the same reasons as her. The reason was, quite plainly, this: Dahlia was not attracted to anyone.

Not in the sense that she had never had a crush (though she hadn't). Not in the sense that she didn't find anyone good-looking (because it was a matter of objectivity, wasn't it, the ability to look at someone and ascertain that yes, their features were expressive in a way that would look breathtaking on canvas, the hollow at the base of their throat forever immortalised in watercolour – that, yes, they were beautiful?). Not in the sense that she thought boys were icky (they _could_ be fucking tramps sometimes – though, truth be told, so could she).

But she had never felt the urge to kiss someone or hold their hand or slide off their clothes and wrap herself around them for a night.

Whenever her friends had giggled about Cass' exploits or Nala's snogs or the progression of Nova's relationship with Al, Dahlia had never sat there and longed for the same. She had never wanted to feel someone's hands on her, never felt an ache deep in her body awaken at the details she had never asked to know. In truth, the thought made her feel pretty damn nauseated.

"What are you thinking about?" Alice asked softly.

"I'm not attracted to anyone." The words leapt out of her mouth before she could stop them.

Alice snorted. "Not even me?" she teased. When all Dahlia did was roll her eyes, she straightened and faced her. "You're being serious, right? Because I'm sure you've mentioned it before."

"Probably." She shrugged. "But yeah. That's what I'm thinking about. The fact that I don't ever want to shag someone because the thought knocks me the littlest bit sick."

Alice laughed. "Lovely."

"Do you think it's weird?" Instinctively, Dahlia posed the question as a demand, rather than an actual plea. It was natural for her to be on the offence, masking the hesitance and uncertainty with a quirk of her eyebrows and the straightening of her jaw. "The fact that you do and I don't?"

"Of course, not. I'm sure loads of people feel the same."

"You are?"

"Of course. I mean, if there's people out there who feel attracted to anyone despite their gender or lack of one, there must be people who are the opposite."

Dahlia scowled. "If there are, I haven't met any. In Hogwarts, it felt like everyone was obsessed with hooking up in a bush or wherever the fuck they did it."

"Maybe they were hiding it," she suggested. "Because everyone else was hooking up in a bush or wherever the fuck they did it."

"Maybe," Dahlia agreed.

"Do you want to try and research it, maybe?" Alice said. She chucked another crisp into her mouth. "Check out a bookstore and see if there are books on it? I'm sure there'll be books on it, there are books on everything nowadays."

She shrugged like it was no big deal. "I have nothing better to do. Although I'm still grounded, remember? I can't go near a bookstore unless it magically appears in my kitchen." Her friend groaned in disappointment. She hummed contemplatively. "Actually, I think I know a way we can."

Being a witch had its perks. She could conjure up a basket of flowers in a moment's notice, move from one end of the country to the other with the wave of a wand, warm her hands in winter and grow back a bone overnight. The benefits of her magic were endless – but it did have some drawbacks too. For one, it still wasn't very compatible with electricity. She had to minimise her use of it at home since, well, the entire house ran on electricity and sometimes, liberal use of it meant that the lights could suddenly turn off when Dad was in the middle of marking homework.

Another drawback of it was that she got too used to thinking like a witch. It was understandable, of course, because she _was_ a witch – but for eleven years of her life, she had thought otherwise and in those eleven years, she had grown up in the age of technology. An age where television and video games and the internet was at her fingertips.

"IS. IT. NORMAL – " Alice said loudly, enunciating each word as she clumsily typed it. Her index finger jabbed down on the keys of the family laptop forcefully, forehead knotted in concentration. Dahlia rolled her eyes next to her, wishing she hadn't been so kind as to let her best friend have at it. "TO. NOT. FEEL – hey, what are these words here? Why have they suddenly appeared?"

Dahlia rolled over and looked. "Oh, that's the suggestion box. It writes what you might be looking for so you can just click it instead of typing it all out."

"But… why is this talking about pregnancy? _Is it normal to not feel pregnant at 12 weeks old?_ This isn't what I'm looking for!"

"So then carry on typing."

"Good point," she conceded. And then: "ATTRACTED – where is the bloody _e_ button again? Oh, wait! It's here. _Is it normal to not feel attracted to anyone?_ How do you click on it?"

Dahlia clicked.

Google assembled a list of links within seconds and fed it to the laptop screen. Alice made a tiny exclamation of surprise, blue eyes round with wonder. Ordinarily, the sight would've enticed a smile out of Dahlia but her thoughts were on more important things. Barely aware of what she was doing, she clicked on the first link, her breath caught in her throat. All thoughts of appearing as nonchalant as always flew out of her head.

 _You are not broken._

The first words her mind registered.

 _You are not broken._

The website appeared to be a forum of some sort where someone submitted a question and it was answered by others in the community. Perhaps that was exactly what she needed because many of the answers were from people who felt just the same, reaching out to assure this asker that they were normal, that this lack of attraction to _anyone_ at all was not a fatal flaw. Some answers were passionate, others simple, as if there were no doubts to it: she was not a faulty cog in a machine. She was not broken.

"Asexual," Dahlia said, clearing her throat of the lump that had risen to it. She glanced at Alice and tapped the screen at where the word first appeared. Her voice was calm because it had to be. "That's what it says here."

The look she received was nothing short of perceptive. Alice, ever the observant best friend, was fully aware of what she was going through.

"It must be nice," she said warmly, "to be able to put a name to it."

"I guess." She shrugged.

It _was_ nice.

More than nice.

It was the feeling she had been empowered with when Neville Longbottom had managed to convince her that she was a witch. The feeling of slowly opening up her Hogwarts letter, a slight tremor in her right hand, to see _Miss Darzi_ neatly printed in green, shimmering ink. The weight of a leather hat on her head, its croon in her mind, the shout of "HUFFLEPUFF!" that had erupted the Great Hall nearly seven and a half years ago.

The feeling of belonging somewhere.

 _Asexual._

She felt like tattooing it across her face.

"Anyway," she said, shaking the thought free from her head. She snapped the laptop shut and raised an eyebrow at the girl beside her. "Didn't you come over here for a reason?"

Alice gave her a quizzical look. "What?"

"The MagiVision?"

"Oh, yeah!" Alice clapped a hand to her forehead. "Forgot about that." She dived to the far end of the bed, all long legs and a fitted red robe, her hand closing around her bag. "I can't believe I'm doing this, you know."

"What, being a good friend for once?"

Alice gasped. "What? I'm a good friend! I've always been a good friend!"

"That's what you think," Dahlia said with a teasing grin. "The rest of us know that you're the slyest bitch in the group."

"Take that back!"

"I'm sorry, I can't, my mother taught me that lying was a sin. Do you want me to sin, Alice? Because that's what you're asking for right now. You're literally asking me to toss myself into the fires of hell to give yourself an ego boost. How fucking _vain_ is that?"

Her right eye twitched murderously. "So help me, Darzi, I will _destroy_ – "

There was a quick succession of knocks on the door and then it flew open. The girls both turned to see Danyal in the doorway, a thin smile on his lips and hands in the pocket of his jeans. "I need the laptop," he said, rather bluntly if one was being honest.

"Do you now?" Dahlia replied flatly because it turned out that her mother _had_ taught her to be honest and she _had_ noticed that very bluntness. She was in no mood to humour it.

"I just said that, didn't I?" Danyal said. He blinked at her, as if waiting for her to get up and place it in his hands. "Can I have it?"

"Why do you want it?" she asked instead.

"Because I have an essay to write for R.S."

"Since when do you do your homework?"

"Since when do you care what I do?" he shot back. He scowled. "Can I just have the damn laptop? I'm grounded too so I might as well do it with all this spare time I now have."

Dahlia rolled her eyes. "Take it," she said, waving a hand towards the desired object. It lay innocently on her bed until he stalked over and grabbed it. "Don't break it."

"I know how to use a laptop," he said scathingly.

She sent him her most infuriating look, the one she had perfected in fourth year after spending at least an hour in front of the mirror. It had come about after Nala had finally started dating this guy she had mooned over for months, one Maksimilian Volkov, who Dahlia had found much too cocky for her approval. The rest of the girls hadn't been fond of him either, though Alice and Cassidy had dealt with their distaste for Nala's sake and the others had simply retreated into their quietest selves around him. Neither had been Dahlia's style – she had settled for irritating the bloke instead.

Cue: The Look.

It worked on everyone and Danyal was no exception. "Don't look at me like that," he snapped.

"Like what?" she asked innocently.

He glared.

Alice sighed. "Don't give him The Look, Dahlia. You know how much it annoys people."

"What look?" she said. She didn't even bother to hide her grin.

Alice ignored her. "Sorry about that," she said to Danyal. "We tried to train her but she bit the instructor's leg in our first lesson."

Though he might have been annoyed at his sister, Danyal was generally rather polite with everyone else. He relaxed a little and nodded in acknowledgement of her apology. "What's that?" he asked, indicating the small black object in her hand.

She glanced down. "Oh, it's just a MagiVision. Well, an illegal one anyway."

"An illegal _what?"_

"MagiVision," she repeated. "Sort of like the Muggle television but it runs on magic and only offers magical channels. You set it up and it can project onto any surface but it works best on a solid wall."

"And it's illegal?"

"This one is," she said, flushing pink with guilt. "It's not licensed."

"The licensed ones are too expensive," Dahlia interjected dismissively. "I'd have to sell my left kidney in Knockturn Alley for it. This one is from Yves Lewis. He might be a wanker but he always managed to get things from and into places no one else could."

Danyal eyed it. "Oh. Right."

"We're going to set it up and watch something before I have work," she said. She paused. "If you want, you can watch with us."

He glanced down at the laptop in his hands, then at the MagiVision and then back again. There was a real hesitation in him, the obvious tug of desire to let go of his irritation and to sit back, relax and join them – but then his shoulders stiffened again and he shook his head.

"I have an essay to do," he said.

The door clicked shut behind him.

* * *

"I'm just scared. This guy does so well at work, always reaches the group target and finishes his paperwork, organises it, like, _meticulously_. It's as if everything falls into his lap, almost. He's clearly going to get the promotion but I just – I want it so _badly_ , you know?"

Sometimes, Dahlia liked work.

She liked putting on her black shirt, black trousers and black apron, a little gold badge declaring her name pinned to her breast pocket. She liked seeing the Harpy logo in the mirror just before she set off, liked standing behind the counter and waiting for customers, liked creating desserts and drinks with an expert twirl of her wand. Sometimes, cleaning up wasn't even that bad at all.

…

Nah, it was always fucking awful.

But the point was that sometimes Dahlia enjoyed her job. Today was one of those days. Because weirdly enough, sometimes she _liked_ hearing about other people's lives and giving them advice. It was something she had never thought possible, a fact that she was sure would cause her friends to report her to the Aurors under the possibility of that she was being impersonated using Polyjuice Potion – because she was, after all, Dahlia Darzi, the girl who had regularly told her friends she didn't give a shit about anything they had to say to her.

(A joke, of course. She was blunt and they loved it because they loved her. Whenever she said such things, they just laughed and called her something unprintable, for that was the way their friendship worked.)

"What do you think?" the customer sighed.

She was folded on the stool James Potter had been collapsed in the week before, the arch of her neck defeated, shoulders slumped under her smart work robes. She moodily stirred a mug of hot chocolate.

Dahlia handed a Molldog – a popular hot drink, its title hated by its namesake, that made all freezing ears steam up, (now including a dash of alcohol!) – to another customer and accepted his gold with a thank you. When it came, her smile did not make him choke on the drink since it was genuine which meant it actually looked like a smile.

"I think," Dahlia said after the other customer had slipped away, "that the only thing you can do is work as hard as you can. The promotion will go to whoever the manager feels deserves it. So your best bet is to just work for it. Try your best. Hope they notice how much you've really pulled it together."

She sniffed. "But what if they don't promote me?"

"Then you cry about it for a night and then go back to your job and work just as hard. Harder, if you can – but make sure you don't wear yourself out. You don't want to collapse from all the stress and you need to make sure you still have a life outside of it. But honestly, you just need to think about the long-term with these things. Even if you don't get this one, another promotion will be available soon enough and _that's_ the one you can properly go for."

She looked up from her hot chocolate. "You're right. There's always going to be another promotion. This isn't the end of the world."

"Of course, I'm right," Dahlia said. "I'm always bloody well right."

The customer laughed. "I'm sure you are. You must hear these things quite a lot. Or is that barkeepers?"

"God knows. I _do_ hear my fair bit though. Something about wearing an apron makes everyone trust me."

She cracked a smile. "You weren't a Hufflepuff at Hogwarts were you, by any chance?"

"I was," Dahlia said proudly.

"Figures," she said. "You Puffs always were an understanding lot."

Understanding. Ha! She was sure _that_ wasn't a word anyone would apply to her if they hung around with her outside of work. The very thought cracked her up.

The rest of her shift passed without incident. There wasn't so much of a whisper of The K – she had decided to hate him eternally after one too many arrogant boasts about his expertise at everything under the sun – and everyone else was just lovely. A young mum with two toddlers arrived towards the end of the shift, the little girls honestly stealing Dahlia's heart within seconds and she couldn't help but giving them a discount for all their charm. An old lady with silver hair and a lifetime of stories spent at least twenty minutes recounting some of them, sending the entire staff into riots of laughter. Her coworkers chatted about their lives and she told them about her Auntie Supriya and before she knew it, it was time to clock off.

"Teddy?" she said, popping her head into the kitchen. The boss was slicing up a fish at lightning speed, the knife a blur on the chopping board. He looked up distractedly, hair morphing into lime green. "My shift's over, I'm heading off."

"Yeah. Uh. Yeah. Sure thing. Have fun."

"Will do," she said, stifling a laugh.

She pushed the door open further, winding her way through the bustling kitchen to the cloakroom. The Harpy didn't boast a massive team in the winter, its busiest time being the summer months when the café was jam-packed with Hogwarts students and tourists, but it was large enough. Dahlia edged around them all until she slipped into the small room where she had hung her coat. She had just put her arms in them when she saw something shift in the corner of her eye and spun around, her hand flying for her wand.

"Calm down, it's only me."

"Jesus Christ, Louis! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" she screeched.

Louis smirked. "Language."

"Sorry," she said automatically, even though she really wasn't. Nevertheless, he was still her boss, no matter what little regard he and Teddy held for the formalities of their role. They had nearly laughed in her face the first time she had reluctantly called them "sir". "But you did scare me."

"Oops," he said.

"Oops," she parroted. She eyed his hair. "Orange? Really?"

"I'm tapping into my inner Weasley," he replied.

His inner Weasley was disgusting.

Dahlia told him as such.

"You're too sweet," he cooed. "You know what else is sweet? Teddy's new cigs." He rattled the packet in his hands at her, a gaudy gold rectangle of cancer sticks that seemed right up the metamorphmagus' alley, spiky black lettering scrawled across it. "I'm about to take a break and smoke some. Wanna join?"

She grimaced. "Do I want to smoke something that is scientifically proven to slowly kill my body? No, thanks."

"Charming."

"I try."

Honestly speaking, she had never felt the urge to smoke and didn't think she ever would. Her friends had occasionally done it at the various Quidditch after parties at Hogwarts. She had been more than happy to stick with her Butterbeer and the natural high of cramming so many students into such a tight space, music sweetening the poison that usually lingered in her bite. Besides, she didn't think that 'borrowing' her boss' cigs would be recommended by anyone, even if it was by her other boss' encouragement.

She buttoned up her coat, knotted her scarf around her neck and shoved her gloves on with a farewell. Less than two minutes later, she was swinging out of The Harpy's Lounge and into the winter wonderland of London's magical scene.

Since she had been paid the previous weekend and was already out, Dahlia figured that it couldn't hurt to buy the book she had been reading in Flourish and Blott's so instead of apparating home on the spot, she turned in the direction of Diagon Alley. The area had expanded quite a bit over the past two decades in an effort to revitalise the wizarding world following the Second War and included a number of winding streets coiled up out of the sight of the Muggles. Some were swankier streets that reeked of money, others trendy destinations for teenagers desperate to claim an area all for their own – The Harpy's Lounge sat on one such lane just off Diagon Alley.

Dahlia entered Flourish and Blott's within minutes. In a stark contrast to the other night, the bookshop was now brimming with customers – bespectacled wizards flicking through the comic book section, worn-looking mothers casually inspecting the erotica aisle – so she didn't waste any time in breathing in the atmosphere.

"There you are," she muttered victoriously as she snatched up the very book she had picked up last time. It was even folded in the same place as before. Smiling to herself, she turned towards the counter –

And promptly walked into someone.

"Fuck!" she hissed, the back of her hand flying to her nose. She pulled it away to see if there was any blood – thankfully, there wasn't. "Watch where you're going, will you?"

"Sorry," the other person replied.

She stilled.

Not again.

"Seriously?" Dahlia snapped, tilting her head up to see James Potter smiling embarrassedly at her. The smile faded. "Are you stalking me or something?"

His eyebrows furrowed together. "If I wanted to stalk you, wouldn't I just hang around the Harpy until it was your shift?"

"I didn't say you were smart about it," she retorted.

He blinked. "Well, I'm not," he said, "so you can simmer down now."

"Don't tell me what to do."

"What the – why do you hate me so much? I've not done anything to you – "

"You cried about your ex-girlfriend to me and then asked me to shag you," she said flatly.

He winced. "Well. There was that. But I tried to apologise!" he protested. "You just apparated away!"

Dahlia shrugged lazily, knowing it would likely annoy him. "And what?" She adjusted her scarf around her neck in the very picture of nonchalance and raised a single eyebrow as slow as she could.

"Well, then, the only reason this is being dragged out is because of you," he replied. "I've showed that I'm willing to work it out and I've tried to reach out to you – it's _you_ who refuses to swallow her pride and hear me out."

Her first instinct was to scowl and tell him to piss off, mostly because she knew he had hit the nail right on its head; her second was to smile and inform him that he had done so. She settled for that one. Understandably, James looked unimpressed.

"Merlin, you're going to be the death of me," he muttered murderously under his breath. Then, he straightened up and sent her a smile – it was equal parts strained and sardonic. "Hi, Darzi. Glad to have caught you! I would just like to apologise for my behaviour the other night. It wasn't appropriate and I'm sorry for not thinking before I spoke. Please accept my sincere regrets." He held out his hand.

She eyed it like it was a bug.

"You shake it," he said helpfully.

"My right hand is occupied."

"Move the book to the other hand," he advised. He glanced down at the cover and his face abruptly brightened. "Hey, is that the latest in the Mayfair Mysteries series?"

She blinked. "Er… Yeah?"

"I love that series!" he exclaimed. Previous irritation wiped away, he stepped closer in his enthusiasm. "I heard this one's the best of the lot, is that true? Personally, my favourite was 'The Glastonbury Ghost' – absolutely amazing twist at the end. Honestly did not see it coming."

Several thoughts ran through Dahlia's head at that moment, making her brain grind to a complete stop. It spanned everything from _what the fuck is going on_ to _obviously, 'Lapis and Lamias' was better_ to _Jesus Christ, his aftershave is actually really nice_ to –

"You can read?" she blurted.

"Er…" James paused, eyebrows lifted quizzically. "Yes? Why wouldn't I?"

"I mean – " For some reason, her mind was still in a thousand places at once. She couldn't believe that a guy had picked up something like the Mayfair Mysteries, a series of books set in the 1800s about two lesbians solving magical crimes due to the incompetency of the Ministry, never mind _James freaking Potter._ "You're a Gryffindor."

"So?"

"I didn't know Gryffindors could read," she spluttered.

James poked his tongue against the inside of his left cheek. He inspected her as if to determine whether she was being serious, a smile quirking the edges of his lips. "Well, you're the least welcoming Hufflepuff I've ever seen so I guess we both just defy the stereotypes, don't we?"

"Seriously," Dahlia said, unable to stop the words from pouring out of her mouth. "Since when do _you_ read? You're a – well, you _were_ the Gryffindor poster boy. You know, Captain of the Quidditch team, shagging your way through half the school, always had a blonde at your side – how the fuck do books fit into that?"

"Girls like intelligent guys," he replied easily.

She stared at him. "You're fucking kidding me, right?"

James laughed. It was a nice laugh, rich and loud and not as obnoxious as she had expected. It lit him up like a Christmas tree. "I'm kidding," he assured her. "You know that playing Quidditch doesn't mean you can't read? I've always read books – kinda impossible not to when you have Aunt Hermione living next door."

"But – you're reading the Mayfair Mysteries," Dahlia said. "Guys don't read that."

"Clearly, they do."

She stared at him again. She was fully aware of how stupid she looked doing it but she didn't really care. Somehow, James Potter had thrown her off-guard. Over a book. Bloody hell.

"I need to get home," she said finally. "I forgot that I'm grounded."

James laughed again, the sound much softer this time. She slid past him, holding her book to her chest, her thoughts finally settling like the snow outside. She had just made it to the mouth of the aisle when she heard him shout behind her.

"Hey! Hey, Darzi! Do you think you can forgive me now?"

She stopped, shaking her head in disbelief. "Fine," she called, rolling her eyes. "Whatever."

* * *

 **Please tell me the formatting still isn't fucked up.**

 **DISCLAIMER: The website mentioned at the start of this chapter is 7cups. I literally typed in the same question that Alice did and it's one of the first links.**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE: Apparently, there's a word called subtlety that exists. I'm not sure whether it actually does bc why try to lowkey slide in a concept when I can be the writing equivalent of a brick to the face? (Or the person throwing said brick. Whatever.)**

 **This chapter is probs actually rubbish because it is currently 03:17 as I am writing this and my muse has been gone for... three months? Maybe longer. Uni sucks the creativity from me apparently. Also, I have recently been binging stuff about BTS and I can only have one obsession at a time lmao #petitionforplumstomarryminyoongi**

 **ALSO for my peace of mind, just pls accept that Mrs Darzi speaks mostly in Hindi bc your girl is struggling to piece her sentences together in broken English idek anymore**


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